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This article aims to analyze how schools and their actors see their structures and practices transformed by the war. To do so, I focus on the Lycée Abdel Kader (LAK) in Beirut, which was founded by the French Secular Mission (MLF) in 1910 and sold in 1985 to the Rafic Hariri Foundation (FRH), a Lebanese, private and Sunni association. This decision of the MLF, precipitated by the context of civil and international war in Lebanon (1975-1990), is the occasion for the different authorities of the LAK to modify, through the signature of an agreement, the power relations within the establishment. From being the sole owner of the school, the MLF became a simple partner and was, in fact, relegated to the background by the FRH. The French state, for its part, seemed to seize the opportunity of the sale of the LAK to disengage itself financially from this institution located in a region hostile to French interests as of 1981. These reorganizations gave rise to a rhetoric of abandonment among the principals to convince the French partners to regain control of the internal affairs of the LAK. Based on the school archives as well as on interviews with former principals, teachers, and members of the FRH, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of the wars on educational institutions, on the one hand, and to that of the evolution of relations, via the school prism, between France and Lebanon during the conflict, on the other hand.