Alsace: a high school diploma option drones, a first that attracts the army

Eleven students from an Alsatian town inaugurate a drone option in the context of their professional baccalaureate Ciel (Cybersecurity, IT and networks, electronics).

• The school has established a partnership with the Air and Space Force.
• Instructors have specifically provided drone piloting lessons to the students.

A unique school training program in France that interests the army. The army closely observes students from a professional baccalaureate in Alsace: eleven high school students will indeed take on a drone option.

The Louise Weiss high school in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, an Alsatian town of 5,000 inhabitants located in the Vosges Mountains, will introduce this specialization in 2026. It is part of a professional baccalaureate program in Ciel (Cybersecurity, IT and networks, electronics). Including a drone option in this vocational baccalaureate, “the idea was to create an innovative program that does not currently exist anywhere else by using the drone as a tool“, explained the high school principal, François Ginoux, to AFP.

Skills that “interest” the army

The institution has established a partnership with the Air and Space Force. Army instructors have provided drone piloting lessons to the students and have shown them around airbases in the region. These are skills that “interest” the army, as explained by the AFP’s Pascal Fischer, who leads the Air Force Regional Recruitment Center. “We need drones” for surveillance and security of military sites, and trained individuals capable of “implementing countermeasures” against hostile drones, he added.

The army had 3,000 drones at the beginning of the year and will have 15,000 by the end of 2026. “Our effort is to stay at the forefront of technology and have every soldier be a drone operator,” emphasized General Philippe de Montenon, commanding the land operational force, at the end of April, on the last day of the extensive military exercise Orion 26.

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Among the students at Louise-Weiss, 17-year-old Nolan is considering a military career and hopes that his knowledge of drones will be “a small additional advantage that others may not necessarily have“. While using a drone as a weapon is “not the goal“, the teenager sees himself using it for “scouting” or conducting “reconnaissance missions. Apart from the military, “other sectors are also very promising,” says Principal François Ginoux, mentioning “companies that conduct heat loss research on their facilities” or the agricultural sector.