It is a unique educational training in France at the moment. Eleven students from the Louise Weiss high school in Sainte-Marie-aux-mines (Haut-Rhin), are the first to inaugurate a professional baccalaureate with a drone option.
By including a drone option in this Ciel professional baccalaureate (Cybersecurity, IT and networks, electronics), “the idea was to create an innovative sector which does not exist anywhere else for the moment by using the drone as a tool”, explains to AFP the principal of the high school, François Ginoux.
“We need drones”
These are skills that “are of interest” to the army, explains Pascal Fischer, who commands the Air Force Regional Recruitment Center. “We need drones” for surveillance and security of military sites, and trained people capable of “putting in place countermeasures” against hostile drones, he continues.
The establishment has formed a partnership with the Air and Space Force. Army instructors gave drone piloting lessons to the students and took them on tours of air bases in the region. During the year, the eleven students – including only one girl – also learn to slalom between the blocks, to improve their skills in the construction and deconstruction of drone kits, or even in more scientific work on lift and speed.
With what destiny? Nolan, 17, is considering a military career, for example, and hopes that his knowledge of drone science will be “a little extra, an asset that others won’t necessarily have.” If using a drone as a weapon is “not the goal”, the teenager imagines instead using it for “scouting” or carrying out “reconnaissance” operations.
The Army had 3,000 drones at the start of the year, it will have 15,000 at the end of 2026. “Our effort is to stay up to date with technology and for each soldier to be a drone operator,” underlined General Philippe de Montenon, commander of the land operational force, at the end of April, on the last day of the vast Orion 26 military exercise.
