less than 80 establishments have completed their application file for the experiment for the start of the 2024 school year

It is one of the symbols of the executive’s speech, which wants to highlight the return of authority. The school uniform must be tested at the start of the 2024 school year in voluntary communities. Emmanuel Macron wanted around a hundred test schools. There will be barely 80.

How many students will wear the uniform at the next school year? The experiment, desired by Emmanuel Macron and Gabriel Attal, must start in September and for two years, before a possible generalization in 2026. The deadline for communities to apply has been postponed to June 15. It was initially scheduled for February 15. The Ministry of National Education had postponed it to give more time to potential volunteers.

When this school uniform experiment was announced in December 2023, many candidates made themselves heard. Ultimately, 124 schools wish to get involved and only 79 projects are completely completed, according to the Ministry of Education.

The process was abandoned in some places due to lack of enthusiasm. Indeed, town halls, departments or even regions which had volunteered, in the fall of 2023, were subject to the approval of school councils or boards of directors, in middle and high schools for the implementation of this experiment. Very quickly, communities found themselves faced with refusal from teachers, parents and even students themselves.

In the Allier department for example, which embarked on the adventure during the winter of 2023, no college ultimately wished to participate in the initiative. In Marseille, it was the students of a college who voted against. Ditto in a school campus in Le Mans, in Sarthe. In Côtes-d’Armor, parents demonstrated against it, so the mayor gave up.

If the enthusiasm is not as strong as hoped by the Ministry of Education, experiments will take place in certain places. Five schools in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) and Tourcoing (North), three in Neuilly-sur-Marne (Seine-Saint-Denis) and only one in Limoges (Nouvelle-Aquitaine). In Metz, in Moselle, six schools will be part of the system, even if the students will only wear a blouse over their clothes.

In the town of Saint-Doulchard, in Cher, two schools finally agreed to test the uniform, out of the five initially identified. The mayor, Richard Boudet, did not imagine such a cumbersome procedure: “We thought it would be much simpler, implementing this common dress code. We had to be very motivated. There are other mayors who, at the start, were more up for this experiment. When they saw the complexity of the device, they backed down” he confides.

Only two municipalities have already embarked on the experiment during the year. The Chevalière school in Béziers, in Hérault and another, in Puteaux, in the Hauts-de-Seine.

THE made in France, promoted by the government, is very often unaffordable for communities. Some therefore try to limit environmental and social impacts by choosing suppliers who produce in Europe and not in Asia.

But the deadlines are short. According to our information, it is possible that the outfits will not all be ready for the start of the school year, September 2, 2024.