French President Emmanuel Macron has known as for a ban on cellphones in upper-secondary colleges (lycées) throughout the nation initially of the 2026-2027 faculty 12 months.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday introduced his need to ban cellphones in excessive colleges “beginning firstly of the subsequent faculty 12 months.”
“School is the place the place you study, and it is the place the place you talk with different folks,” Macron advised the French press whereas discussing the risks of smartphone and display dependancy in adolescents.
“We banned cellphones in center colleges final faculty 12 months, and we are going to undoubtedly prolong this to excessive colleges subsequent faculty 12 months. The training minister is presently trying into it,” Macron added.
French information outlet Franceinfo reached out to the Élysée Palace, which confirmed that the ban on telephones in lycées was on the docket for summer time 2026.
READ MORE: 5-day weeks, shorter courses and later begins: How France might change the college day
What’s the state of affairs now?
Technically, telephones have been banned in French main and lower-secondary (collège) colleges since 2018, however the legislation has been troublesome to implement.
As such, initially of the 2024-2025 faculty 12 months, France started experimenting with the Portable en pause (digital pause) scheme, which concerned requiring pupils to depart their smartphones on the entrance of the constructing, in lockers, or in particular briefcases or pouches.
This was rolled out throughout French lower-secondary colleges in 2025, although it has not but been carried out in all collèges.
As issues stand, lycées (highschool/ higher secondary) might need inside laws prohibiting using cellphones by pupils in ‘all or a part of the premises’.
Efforts to crack down on screens
In spring 2024, a fee of French specialists revealed a report after reviewing the impacts of display time on kids, with suggestions from TV bans for toddlers to blocking entry to Instagram for under-18s.
READ MORE: How France plans to guard youngsters from an excessive amount of display time
More not too long ago, on Tuesday, centrist MP Laure Miller from the president’s centrist celebration Ensemble pour la République proposed a invoice aimed specifically at ‘extending the ban on using cellphones to lycées, underneath the identical circumstances as in different instructional institutions’.
And final week, MPs from Macron’s celebration launched one other invoice to control social media use by minors, with one of many measures being banning social media for under-15s and suspending the accounts of youthful kids on the platforms.
In December, Australia will ban social media for youngsters underneath 16, with platforms resembling Facebook, Instagram and TikTok required to delete the accounts of underage customers or threat fines of as much as €27.5 million.
