Launched in 2007 order to improve vocational training’s efficacy and bring it closer to the working world, the renovation of vocational studies actually consists in a new structure for the diplomas and trainings on offer. As well as generalising the preparation of a vocational baccalaureate in three years, it transforms the BEP into an intermediary diploma and launches anew the CA P in all vocational high schools. Despite the official arguments, which make much economic and professional needs and requirements, the analysis of its genesis and first results indicate that its objectives are actually budgetary and school-based, work and jobs having only a very secondary importance. The reform is actually part of a politics of subordinating vocational training to the school system, which contributes to the lack of clarity of the meaning of diplomas both within the school system and on the jobs market.