Origin and history
The César-Baggio high school, originally called the Diderot Institute, was built between 1934 and 1938 in the Moulins district of Lille, on the site of the old fortifications of the 19th century. The project, led by Mayor Roger Salengro, was part of a comprehensive social planning plan to modernize the city after the First World War. The architect Jacques Alleman, marked by his experience of the Great War and his membership in Freemasonry, designed an Art Deco style building combining esoteric symbols (stars, octagons) and functionality. The 158-metre south façade, adorned with varnished bricks, was visually contrasting with the opposite plant garden, while the entrance hall, decorated with ceramics and luminaires, displayed a double D in tribute to Denis Diderot.
The institute brought together two schools: the practical school César-Baggio (founded in 1899 to train the sons of industrial workers) and the higher primary school Benjamin-Franklin. This marriage symbolized the desire to democratize access to a technical culture, far from the bourgeois elites of classical high schools. During the Second World War, the high school was requisitioned by the Germans, serving both as a day school and as a barracks at night. In 1944, bombardments damaged a wing, and resistance fighters like Raymond Deken, an English teacher, organized clandestine actions there before being executed. After the war, the institution evolved to offer training combining technical and scientific, becoming a major centre of vocational and technological education in the region.
The building, which was listed as a historical monument in 1997 for its southern façade, roof and hall, illustrates the progressive utopia of the 1930s. Its architecture combines references to Lights (suns, stars evoking reason) and industrial modernity (workshops designed as factories). The area of Moulins, formerly unsanitary and labourer, was transformed by this project, alongside other equipment such as the observatory or the bath-douchs. Today, the Baggio High School continues this dual vocation: to train in technical occupations (BTS, preparatory classes) while anchoring its identity in Lille social history, between companion heritage and memory of the Resistance.
Denis Diderot, philosopher of the Encyclopaedia and publisher of the Encyclopaedia, was chosen as a tutor for his fight against obscurantism and his role in disseminating technical knowledge. Its name also recalled Lille's historical link with the printing industry, via the Panckoucke family, publisher of the Encyclopedia in the 18th century. The institute initially had to be part of a larger whole, including a labour university and a northern industrial institute, but these extensions never came into being. Despite the destructions of 1944 and subsequent transformations (such as the addition of a building in 1982 for boarding school), the spirit of the original project persists: a place where pedagogical innovation and social commitment intersect.
Under the occupation, the school became a symbol of passive resistance. In December 1940, the laceration of a portrait of Hitler by students led to the arrest of Assistant Director Roussel and ten students. Later, the Sussex network installed a clandestine transmitter there, while the concierge Duhamel and his son were deported for helping the Resistance. These episodes illustrate the ambiguous role of schools during the war: both propaganda tools (Germans trained recruits) and hotbeds of protest. After 1945, the high school adapted to economic needs, creating fields in mechanics, electronics or graphic industries, and welcoming publics undergoing conversion, such as minors who became printers.
The evolution of training reflects changes in technical education in France. In the 1950s, the high school opened a preparatory class for large schools, then BTS in the 1970s, responding to the growing demand for senior technicians. Today, it offers rare courses, such as the TS for senior technicians, and maintains a strong link with the industrial world through partnerships (GRETA, CFA). Its architecture, decorations and history make it a unique testimony to the republican ideal of the 1930s: combining technical progress, social emancipation and artistic beauty, in a city at the time marked by the aftermath of the crisis and labour tensions.
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