On August 31, 2026, the start of the school year is approaching and franceinfo publishes its "info": 203 criminal investigations are underway in Paris for suspicions of violence in schools and after-school care. Direct source: the Paris prosecutor's office. The figure lands clean. Not "around two hundred," not "a wave." 203. And the cases concern or have concerned 184 Parisian schools — 134 nursery schools and 50 elementary schools — not counting the daycares. Sometimes several investigations in the same establishment. There's the inflated balloon circulating. We prick it a little to see if it holds air. First the established facts. According to the figures transmitted to franceinfo, of these 203 investigations underway: 143 concern nursery schools, 36 elementary schools, 24 daycares. 47 other cases have already been dismissed without further action. The suspects are mostly activity leaders. During the summer of 2026, 22 new reports were recorded in July and August; the month not being over, the counter could still move. Six cases are referred to a court, six are under judicial investigation. A trial was moreover opening that same Monday for an activity leader from the 15th arrondissement. Paris City Hall specifies for its part that agents reported for acts of a sexual nature against a minor will not return to a position in contact with children, regardless of the judicial outcome. Three trials already held in May-June: two acquittals, one sentence of 18 months suspended. All under appeal. That's the skeleton. Nothing invented. The context, for its part, does not date from yesterday. The Paris after-school care affair has been dragging on since 2025. In November of that year, the prosecutor's office spoke of 15 investigations for sexual violence in nursery school. Then it ballooned. In May 2026, prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced on RTL investigations in about a hundred establishments: 84 nursery schools, about twenty elementary schools, about ten daycares. All arrondissements affected. Suspensions of agents by the City — 78 early 2026 including 31 for sexual suspicions, figures later revised upward —, a 20-million-euro plan, spectacular police custodies like the one in May in the 7th (Saint-Dominique and surroundings). Complaints against former elected officials. A freeing of speech, say the magistrates. A minors' brigade under pressure, too. The late August figure therefore did not come out of a hat: it's the addition that continues. What is false or exaggerated? No one claimed that the 203 were convictions. These are investigations for suspicions. A report does not automatically open a procedure. Dismissals without further action exist (47 already). The alleged facts range from an excessive gesture to sexual assault or presumed rape; the prosecutor's office itself says of different natures and severities. No proven "network" in the August 31 review, no exhaustive official mapping of the victims. The 184 schools is the cumulative total of cases opened or dismissed, not 184 establishments in a permanent state of siege. And the daycares are added without being in the schools total. Precision matters: one does not confuse the thermometer and the fever. The blind spots remain numerous. How many children really concerned? How many firm indictments beyond the few media cases? What timeframes for the families? The SOS Périscolaire collective points to the lack of resources and the judicial backlog; deputy prosecutor Lisa-Lou Wipf had already said in May that the figures were "high and worrying" while also seeing in them a speech that is freeing itself earlier. City Hall multiplies preventive suspensions and announcements of professionalization of temporary workers. Justice advances at its own pace, with acquittals and convictions under appeal. On X, the figure circulates in a loop the same day, often without the "suspicions" or the dismissals. Buzz likes round numbers. Reality prefers decimals. Provisional conclusion, to the measure of the evidence: franceinfo's statement is exact. The Paris prosecutor's office did indeed communicate these 203 investigations underway and these 184 schools concerned as of August 31, 2026. It is a serious assessment of a scandal that has extended for more than a year. But a stock of investigations is not a stock of guilty parties. It is a stock of questions still open, of cases that accumulate and of a judicial machine that was already struggling. The start of the school year will be under tension, that is certain. The reader, for their part, can smile wryly: we have the figure. We are still waiting for the judicial truth, school by school. In the meantime, the buzz balloon has deflated a little. There remains enough air for us to keep watching.