Secondary education in France in the context of "Lycée Henri-IV"

In the administrative divisions of France, the department (French: département, pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃] ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 departments, consisting of ninety-six departments in metropolitan France, and five overseas departments, which are also classified as overseas regions. Departments are further subdivided into 333 arrondissements and 2,054 cantons (as of 2023). These last two levels of government have no political autonomy, instead serving as the administrative basis for the local organisation of police, fire departments, and, in certain cases, elections.

Each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council (sg. conseil départemental, pl. conseils départementaux). From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils (sg. conseil général, pl. conseils généraux). Each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school (collège) buildings and technical staff, and local roads and school and rural buses, and a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; however, regions have gained importance since the 2000s, with some department-level services merged into region-level services.

The Lycée Condorcet (French: [lise kɔ̃dɔʁsɛ]) is a secondary school in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. Founded in 1803, it is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. Henri Bergson, Horace Finaly, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marcel Proust, Jean-Luc Marion, Francis Poulenc and Paul Verlaine are some of the students who attended the Lycée Condorcet.

Some of the school's famous teachers include Jean Beaufret, Paul Bénichou, Jean-Marie Guyau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Stéphane Mallarmé.

The Lycée Buffon is a secondary school in the XVe arrondissement of Paris, bordered by boulevard Pasteur, the rue de Vaugirard and the rue de Staël. Its nearest métro station is Pasteur. It is named for Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon. Jean-Claude Durand is its current proviseur.

It is a "cité scolaire" made up of a collège, a lycée and scientific classes préparatoires. It has 2 000 students, served by 170 professors, 4 "conseillers principaux d'éducation" and 50 other teaching personnel. It also houses an adult education centre for those taking the BTS and the Licence des métiers de l'immobilier, and a UPI, the only one in Paris for the visually impaired. The young visually impaired students can then integrate into classical education.

The Classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (French pronunciation: [klas pʁepaʁatwaʁ o ɡʁɑ̃dz‿ekɔl], Higher school preparatory classes, abbr. CPGE), commonly called classes prépas or prépas, are part of the French post-secondary education system. They consist of two years of study (extendable to three or exceptionally four years) which act as an intensive preparatory course (or cram school) with the main goal of training students for enrolment in one of the grandes écoles. Whereas enrollment in public universities in France is open to any school leaver with an adequate baccalauréat, enrollment in the grandes écoles is restricted to the highest-ranked students in a separate national competitive examination. Preparation for this examination entails one of the highest student workloads in Europe (29 to 45 contact hours a week, with up to 10 hours of guided tutorials and oral exam sessions).

The grandes écoles are higher education establishments (graduate schools) delivering master's degrees and rarely doctorates. They include science and engineering schools, business schools, the four veterinary colleges, the four écoles normales supérieures and the École Nationale des Chartes but do not include medical or law schools, nor architecture schools. Because of the competitive entrance exams, having attended one of the grandes écoles is often regarded as a status symbol, as they have traditionally produced most of France's scientists, executives and intellectuals. Each grande école uses one of three different examinations, each with its own prépas: scientific, economic, and literary.

The baccalauréat (French pronunciation: [bakaloʁea] ; lit. 'baccalaureate'), often known in France colloquially as the bac, is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the lycée) by meeting certain requirements. Though it has only existed in its present form as a school-leaving examination since Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's implementation on 17 March 1808, its origins date back to the first medieval French universities. According to French law, the baccalaureate is the first academic degree, though it grants the completion of secondary education. Historically, the baccalaureate is administratively supervised by full professors at universities.

Similar academic qualifications exist elsewhere in Europe, variously known as Abitur in Germany, maturità in Italy, bachillerato in Spain, maturita in Slovakia and Czech Republic. There is also the European Baccalaureate, which students take at the end of the European School education.