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.