France's experiment with introducing uniforms in schools looks to be quietly ending after mixed results and a cut in government funding.
The uniform scheme was one of the flagship education policies promoted in 2023 by then education minister Gabriel Attal and backed by President Emmanuel Macron, who argued that uniforms could strengthen social cohesion, reduce inequalities and improve behaviour in schools.
But after two years of trial, mixed evaluation results and the withdrawal of state funding, most participating schools and local authorities are abandoning the project.
What was the experiment?
Unlike countries such as the UK, school uniforms are generally not part of the French education system. Most state schools allow pupils to wear ordinary clothes, although any kind of religious clothing is banned due to France's state secularism (laïcité) laws.
