Uniforms, barely used, will return to closets in France. In an interview with the regional press at the end of August, the Minister of National Education, Édouard Geffray, confirmed the end of the initiative, although he downplayed its assessment: “It is neither a failure nor a waste. But the experience shows that, in general, the effect has been quite weak. As for academic results, no particularly clear changes have been perceived. As for the school environment, the effects have been quite uneven.”
He added: “If it doesn’t work, we won’t insist. But if some want to continue the experiment locally because it is working for them, they are free to do so.” Although the AFP news agency contacted the ministry several times to learn about the funding planned for 2026-2027, there was no response.
In practice, local authorities are drawing conclusions one after another. In Metz, the six participating schools, representing 800 students, have ended the program: the city had already announced in 2024 that it would follow the State “while it carried out” the experiment, but its suspension would effectively mean the city’s suspension.
In Florange, a consultation held on June 4 revealed that almost 90% of parents and education professionals were in favor of suspension, despite the mayor’s (LR, right) Rémy Dick’s desire to continue: “There is no point in wanting a single uniform if it has to be imposed,” he finally admitted. The initiative will also not be renewed in Nice, Reims, or Châlons-en-Champagne.
The only notable exception is in Béziers, where far-right mayor Robert Ménard decided to extend the uniform to all schools in the city, but making it optional and without waiting any longer to receive funding from the State.
The project was one of the flagship measures of the government of then Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. Since the start of the 2024 school year, around 100 voluntary schools and educational centers have tested, together with their corresponding local authority, a common uniform, whose cut and color varied according to each school.
Funded equally by the State (up to a maximum of 100 euros per student) and local authorities, the program never cost families a cent: in 2024-2025, the State allocated 1.6 million euros for this purpose.
Therefore, parental acceptance has never been tested in a situation where they themselves would have had to pay for the uniform.
The promises, for their part, were attractive: cohesion, sense of belonging, fight against bullying and discrimination, improvement of the school environment and, by extension, results. A widespread implementation was planned for 2026, provided the pilot test was conclusive.
It was not. The official evaluation by the Directorate of Evaluation, Foresight and Performance (DEPP), published on May 12, 2026, presents a positive but limited assessment: three out of four primary school principals report a positive evolution in the sense of belonging, as do 13 out of 16 secondary school principals.
However, the effects are clearly less convincing regarding learning: only five out of 16 school principals perceive a positive evolution in student achievements, and four out of 16 in their school engagement.
The DEPP collected 87 questionnaires from school principals and 16 from educational institution directors (participation rates close to 90% and 80% respectively): a measure of the perception of educational teams, not a demonstration of a causal effect of the uniform.
These results contrast with the survey conducted by researchers Julien Garric and Christine Mussard, from Aix-Marseille University, in three schools in the academy, published in November 2025 among approximately 1,200 students and 1,100 parents.
Among students, rejection is massive: 70% say they experienced the announcement as “horrible,” especially high school students and those who most question the idea that the uniform improves their school life. For them, the uniform does not erase social differences, which remain visible through shoes, backpacks, or accessories.
Regarding bullying, skepticism is even more marked among students who declare themselves victims of it. Part of the rejection is due to the method, according to Julien Garric, interviewed by RFI: students had already expressed their opposition in a previous survey, but were never consulted about the decision to participate in the initiative.
The three studied centers were not chosen for being representative, clarifies the sociologist: the experiment was carried out in “territories conquered from an ideological point of view,” which were already in favor of the measure.
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Therefore, the survey does not allow stating that all French students reject the uniform, but reveals a clear gap between adults’ expectations and the reality experienced by teenagers.
Parents, for their part, remain aligned with principals: between 75% and 85% are in favor, depending on the centers, with no major changes over time.
But “they do not delude themselves that the uniform will improve academic results or combat bullying,” specifies Julien Garric. “They rather see it as the defense of a certain vision of the republican school, secularism, and authority,” he adds.
From the parents’ federations, skepticism is even more marked. “The school uniform is not successful because it does not respond to any concrete need,” summarized Grégoire Ensel in 2024, then president of the FCPE, the main federation of parent associations.
In Isère, his local counterpart, Gilles Nogues, denounced “exaggerated positive effects”: inequalities among students, according to him, “are transferred to other things: hairstyle, accessories, shoes, backpack…”.
In the end, it was money that ended the project. Already in 2025-2026, the ministry had to reassign funds not planned in the initial budget to maintain the pilot test. In Reims, the municipality explained that it could not bear alone the cost of widespread implementation without State support. Added to this were very concrete management difficulties: choosing clothes, deliveries, and renewing sizes as children grew.
Contrary to what is usually believed, France has never had a national policy imposing uniforms on all its students. Napoleon imposed one in 1802, but only for boarding students of his institutes, a custom that disappeared already in the interwar period.
What is often associated with the “uniform” of yesteryear is, in fact, the smock, a simple protection against ink stains, which disappeared in the 1960s with the arrival of the ballpoint pen. Only some selective centers maintained a true identical outfit, until May 68 forced them to abandon it.
Today it remains mandatory in exceptional cases: Defense institutes, some prestigious private centers, the Antilles and Guyana since the late 1980s.
At the European level, there is a clear division between the United Kingdom, Cyprus, and Malta — where the uniform remains the norm without ever having needed justification — and most of the continent (Germany, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries), where it has disappeared without generating debate.
International literature also does not speak in its favor. A synthesis of more than 800 meta-analyses conducted by John Hattie (2008) concludes that there is an “insignificant, or even nonexistent” relationship with academic results, while US data from Ryan Yeung (2009) show no effect, neither in primary nor secondary school.
A more detailed study (Gentile and Imberman, 2012) documents a slight increase in attendance of girls in secondary school, without affecting results. In the United States, only 16% of public schools currently require the use of uniforms.
There remains a fundamental objection, summarized by Julien Garric: the idea that the uniform would erase social differences is based on a misunderstanding. “The main problem of social mixing in schools is that it does not exist,” observes the sociologist.
Poor and rich students no longer attend the same schools. Eliminating the difference in clothing among children who never cross paths will not be enough to end segregation in the French educational system.
