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France has extended its school phone ban to lycées for students aged 15-18, completing a prohibition across preschool, primary and secondary education. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said the measure is essential amid a competition between screen time and learning time, warning of a major health, cognitive and civic crisis if young people's screen exposure is not reduced. The ban requires students to store phones in collective boxes, lockers or pouches during school hours, with exceptions for medical needs and supervised educational use. President Emmanuel Macron also pledged to reintroduce a social media ban for under-15s in modified form after the country's top court struck down an earlier version on free expression grounds.
Rise of short videos has reduced people’s ability to read texts or watch long films, says French presidentThe ban in lycées, attended by students aged 15-18, means that phones are now banned throughout France’s preschool, primary and secondary school system, as phones in school were already banned for younger ages since 2018.
The prohibition on phones in school is “absolutely essential”, education minister Édouard Geffray told journalists.
“We are facing a competition between screen time and learning time, to the detriment of the latter,” he said, adding that “all teachers” were noticing a gradual decline in students’ vocabulary and ability to understand texts. António Guterres: ‘Superpowers need to understand things have changed’ “If we fail to reduce our young people’s screen exposure, we are heading toward an absolutely major health, intellectual, cognitive and even civic crisis,” Geffray said.
In practice, the ban means students must place their phones into collective boxes, lockers or pouches on arrival at the school and should collect them once classes end, according to the government. There are exceptions for use for medical reasons including disabilities, and for phone use for educational purposes, such as in an IT room or under the supervision of a teacher.
Parliament voted for the ban in July and it came into force a week before classrooms reopened for the academic year, leading to complaints that not enough time was allowed to prepare for its implementation.for those aged under 15, but this was struck down by France’s top court in mid-August on the grounds that it went against freedom of expression. On a visit to a school in southern France to mark the start of an academic year, Macron vowed to try to reintroduce the social media ban in a modified form.
France's president Emmanuel Macron speaks with students in Mende, southern France. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/AFP/Getty Images Scientific evidence showed that “phones, screens, and even more so social media, detract” from being able to learn, he said, with particular harms for those aged under 15.
“They sap your attention span, as you’ve said, and the ability to be with one another,” he told students in a classroom of the Chaptal high school in the town of Mende. Students could be seen “glued to their phones” at break time instead of interacting, and the rise of short videos had reduced people’s ability to read texts or even watch long films.
“When I hold meetings at the Élysée Palace, I now ask people to put away their cell phones beforehand. Even at the Élysée, you have meetings with people, and they’re all on their phones,” Macron told the students.
“Because otherwise, we’re not fully present for what we’re doing. And that means we don’t get anything done. ” The Chaptal high school had voluntarily imposed a ban on phones in classrooms last year. Each student has to place their phone in a numbered pouch that hangs at the top of the classroom beside the blackboard.
It had stopped short of imposing a total ban within school premises, however, because the idea had been strongly opposed by students, members of the student council told Macron.
“There are strong arguments for limiting phone use: to improve concentration and student interaction, and to help those who struggle to manage usage on their own,” a student said. Teenage girls with smartphones in front of the Camille Vernet school complex in Valence, southeastern France.
Photograph: Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images “But the school was also pushing us to use phones and computers more and more,” for internet research, for school work, and to use school apps, she added, complicating the matter. The measure was also seen as “infantilising” by the teenagers.
“It’s not an easy subject, it’s been very controversial,” she continued, saying students needed to be won around. “It didn’t happen overnight. ”Germany says Russia was behind last month’s attempted drone attack at Leipzig airportRussian drone and missile attack kills at least 12 in Kyiv regionA Wicklow woman in Marbella: ‘I would make friends in the summer and they would then go home.
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