Press Conference for the president of the MLF

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Sep 2019

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On the occasion of the start of the 2019-2020 academic year, and following the exceptional meeting organized by the Mlf inviting all the teaching staff of its five institutions, on September 11 and 12, 2019 to mobilize them around a common project: the culture of the schools in terms of students welcome and general follow through at each establishment, the Director General of the Mission Laïque Française (Mlf), Mr. Jean-Christophe Deberre, addressed the media at a press conference that took place on 12th September at the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais of Beirut.

This is the third time that the Mlf through its Director General, Mr. Jean-Christophe Deberre, meets the media to review the details of the situation of its network in Lebanon and its future projects. This practice responds to an ethic of transparency on the functioning of its institutions, and to a desire for an increased visibility to the general public of all the projects that the Mlf is leading and their significance within the framework of the French educational system in Lebanon.

Back to school 2019The start of the 2019 school year is characterized by a general appeasement after agreements have been reached with most parents' committees (CDP) to drop their litigations for the disputes over tuition fee increases. It is important to recall that the Mlf fully implemented law 46 of August 2017, which had repercussions on raising tuition fees.

Every establishment shows a very clear improvement of each of these situations:At Lycée Lamartine in Tripoli, all litigations have been dropped; at Nahr Ibrahim there is no longer any litigation at the judge of urgent matters, but only proceedings that are still pending before the arbitration tribunal, which concerns the 2017-2018 budget; and another procedure which had been submitted for the 2018-2019 budget however the request to freeze the tuition fees as a precautionary measure has been rejected. There is no longer any litigation either at the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais of Beirut, nor at the Lycée Verdun. It is important to recall that in Verdun, several parents had refused to sign the school's financial regulations, which is a mandatory condition for the student's admission therefore some 49 students were potentially at stake of not being admitted. To date, all parents have signed except for the case of two students whose previous tuition fees have not been paid.

Finally, at Lycée Habbouche-Nabatieh all litigations have been dropped in full agreement with the parents' committee (CDP).

In any case, the Mlf relied on the law, its position since the beginning being to respect the salary increases dictated by the law 46, and to compensate these raises by increasing the tuition fees that we would have liked more phased in time, unfortunately the law had not foreseen this process. The Mlf is grateful for the public goodwill as well as the friends of the establishments who helped in some situations, also to the parents' committees who accepted the principle of these increases. It should be remembered that this freeze of the tuitions is equivalent to a subsidy to the network of 5 lycées Mlf worth 2,2 million euros (3 680 000 000 LL).