Lycée Michelet, Vanves, Historical high school in France

Lycée Michelet in Vanves is a cité scolaire grouping a collège, a general lycée and six classes préparatoires (ECS, ECT, LSH, MP, PC*, PSI) in buildings partly inscribed as monuments historiques, set in a 17-hectare park. Its oldest structure is the former château of Vanves, built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and completed in 1704, later enlarged with a chapel in 1859.

The site began in 1798 when the Prytanée français, today's Lycée Louis-le-Grand, bought the former Vanves château grounds as a holiday retreat for boarders; its small classes settled there permanently in 1853. It became an independent school in 1864 as lycée du Prince-Impérial, was renamed lycée de Vanves after 1870, and took the name Michelet in 1888. Architect Alfred-Nicolas Normand built new buildings in the 1880s, and the site was later inscribed as a monument historique.

The school's name honours the historian Jules Michelet, adopted in 1888 after passing through the names lycée du Prince-Impérial, lycée Buffon and lycée de Vanves. Its alumni include Victor Hugo, Georges Méliès, Pierre Bonnard and Mohammad Zaher Shah, the last king of Afghanistan.

The campus lies in Vanves, about 6 km southwest of central Paris, with entrances on rue de la République and rue Michelet. The 17-hectare park and the listed buildings can be seen from the surrounding streets; the school itself is not open to casual visitors during term time.

The old château on the hill, now part of the school, once had a 360-degree view over Paris, Vanves, the Seine plain and Meudon; drawings of it are kept at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. A tunnel under the Issy–Vanves road linked the two halves of its gardens.