Baptiste Bebel Lavalle and his classmates in Versailles private high-school Louis XIV enjoy their carefree life enough to deliberately fail the exams, a national record of zero graduating pupils. Permissive headmaster Léon Jumaucourt s bitchy wife Lucie takes charge, determined to make them pass. She s no match for Bebel s tricks, despite cruel abuse, but the gang also annoys the public, including the dumb police commissioner. After a mix-up between their bomb-alert prop and a real terrorist group s African embassy attack, Bebel s bunch is condemned to pass their exams or go to jail, and the commissioner, charged with supervision, is in no mood to let them off easily.