As she waited for French President Emmanuel Macron in the courtyard of the Daniel-Argote secondary school in Orthez, southern France, on Tuesday, September 5, a teacher reminisced about the 1950s Spanish film Welcome Mr. Marshall! The film tells the story of a Castilian village that is preparing to receive General Marshall, who has come to spread the benefits of American civilization. The villagers go to great lengths to dress in their very best and offer the finest welcome, only to watch as a procession of limousines whizzes past on D-Day, disappearing into the horizon in a cloud of dust.

There was something of this Iberian fable in Macron's visit. Having only been informed of the presidential trip on Friday, the school had just three days to prepare to welcome the French president and his delegation at the start of the new school year. Families were notified one by one. But, unlike the general in the film, the president spent a good three hours – including a canteen meal – in the calm building, where he was warmly welcomed.

It's true that the people of the Béarn region have become accustomed to receiving him: This was Macron's third visit in less than a year. The mayor of the nearby city of Pau, François Bayrou, a longstanding ally of Macron who follows the president step by step on each of his visits, pretends not to know the reason for such assiduity. "It's all very mysterious," he said. However, the imminence of the department's senatorial elections, to be held on September 24, could be a likely reason for this impromptu visit, which could influence the electorate.

In any case, the president managed to give the impression that he had all the time in the world in Orthez, shaking hands with the adults and the 200 or so pupils lined up in the school courtyard. "How's the new school year going?", "Which class are you in?" he asked mechanically. He has little to announce that hasn't already been announced. The two hours of sport per week in secondary schools, which he discussed at length on Monday on journalist Hugo Travers' YouTube channel HugoDécrypte (2 million views live and 700,000 replayed, according to the Elysée), are the logical follow-up to the half-hour required of daily sport in elementary school, which was introduced in 2022. The thermal renovation of 40,000 to 44,000 school buildings over the next ten years is part of a vast plan presented by the government in May.

Macron has also promised 5,000 additional sports fields by 2026, because "you learn better by doing sport." To prepare the "champions of tomorrow," he also wants to more than double the number of places in sports-study programs (from 10,000 to 25,000). These are announcements usually reserved for a minister, but the Ministers of Education, Gabriel Attal, and Sport, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, silent at his side, are wary of encroaching on the president's newly "reserved domain."

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