France
A Brief History
Although homeschooling is still technically legal in France, it is restricted to four exceptions and near illegality. Parents may be permitted to homeschool if the student has a health issue or disability, the family travels extensively, the distance from the nearest school is excessive, or the child is involved in artistic or athletics pursuits which require extensive engagement (Home School Legal Defense Association, 2019; Conseil constitutionnel, 2021). Although this law was passed in 2021, families who were homeschooling their children will be able to gradually transition into other modes of education for their children if they do not quality under the conditions until the conclusion of the 2023-2024 school year (Home School Legal Defense Association, 2019). Although always considered a country with strong regulations around homeschooling, under the old laws parents were only required to submit a declaration of their intent to homeschool (Donnelly, 2012). Under this law, families who meet the criteria to homeschool will be required to obtain permission and submit to annual inspections and home visits from appropriate authorities (Conseil constitutionnel, 2021; The Connexion, 2023).
Why and What Does It Look LikE?
With over 50,000 children previously homeschooled in France in 2021, this law has a widespread impact, and the motivations are complex (Elysee, 2020). However, the title of the decision in which the new laws were passed gives some indication for the primary motivations. Besides the technical bill title, the subtitle is “An Act to Strengthen Respect for the Principles of the Republic” (Conseil constitutionnel, 2021). Opinionated pieces by invested individuals cite the French dedication to their secular culture and their commitment to the public schools (Carle, 2024). This opinion seems to be supported as the law notes that the conditions to homeschool “do not provide that the application for authorisation to homeschool may be motivated by political, religious or philosophical beliefs” (Conseil constitutionnel, 2021). Others note that the French President, Emmanuel Macron, has clearly stated his intent to ban homeschooling citing concerns around religious extremism, especially Islamic extremism, and “separatism” (Elysee, 2020). Contrasting his points with examples of homeschoolers who engage in strict religious practices, he places a strong emphasis on the importance of secularism in France and the fact that he believes homeschooling allows for the exclusion of “thousands of children from citizenship education, from access to culture, to our History, to our values, to the experience of otherness which is the heart of the republican school” (Elysee, 2020).
Although more recently concerning the perceived rise of Islamic extremism in France, the association between homeschooling and religious extremism is not new in this country. In 1997, a highly publicized case of a child who died as a result of parental neglect and refusal of medical assistance which stemmed from extreme Christian religious beliefs (Bongrand, 2016). In response, regulations were put in place and the association between homeschooling and extremism became widespread (Bongrand, 2016). However, since 2015, the association primarily become focused on the relationship between homeschooling and “the radicalization of young French Muslims, despite the lack of evidence that such a relationship exists” (Bongrand, 2016; Gaither, 2018).