“Villeneuve-Loubet to Host Alpes-Maritimes’ First Closed Educational Center on Historic Grounds”

Villeneuve-Loubet will host the first closed educational center (CEF) in the Alpes-Maritimes on its territory. The State, which owns the land on which the Henri-Wallon Institute is located, has decided to set up this social establishment with an educational vocation which welcomes minors.

The establishment on this ground is not a coincidence. This seven-hectare property, which borders the avenue de la Bermone and Les Hautes-Ginestières, has been intended for children since the end of the Second World War. Go back.

1920: Marshal Pétain buys the Ermitage property to make it his second home. He comes there from time to time, cultivates vines and even experiments in the cultivation of soybeans. Until 1942.

Summer camps at the Henri-Wallon Institute

Two years later, the Vichy regime was deposed and Pétain condemned. The property then falls into the hands of the state. Who decides to requisition it for the benefit of the “school health centers of Provence”.

Thus the orphans of the Resistance, those whose parents have been shot or deported, are welcomed there.

1949: the State allocates the land to the family allowance fund of Digne. For twenty years, the Hermitage will host summer camps. Until 1968 and the construction of the Henri-Wallon institute. To do this, the Belle Époque style villa was demolished.

Since then, “adolescents with sociability difficulties” have lived there.