French students’ demands: what does making education a priority mean?

France’s Education Code opens with a commitment: education is the nation’s first priority. That commitment also includes equal opportunity and attention to social and geographical inequalities in education.^[1]

Yet the recurring demands in the high-school movement are very concrete: absent teachers with no replacement, overcrowded classes, deteriorating buildings and toilets, long and fragmented timetables, and persistent anxiety over admission to higher education. LCP documented these issues in its overview of students’ demands. They expose a gap worth examining: why does education, designated the nation’s first priority, struggle to provide even basic conditions in some students’ daily lives?^[2]

To assess whether that priority is being fulfilled, we should start with a student’s day. Do scheduled lessons take place? Is the classroom suitable for learning? Is someone available when difficulties arise? What opportunities for further study can their efforts open up? These everyday experiences determine how much a national promise means to people.

France spends substantial sums on education. Ministry statistics put total domestic education expenditure at €199.2 billion in 2025, or 6.7% of GDP. This includes funding from central government, local authorities, businesses and households, among others; it is not simply the ministry’s budget. After price changes are taken into account, annual spending rose by 0.1%. Growth in real resources can therefore be very limited, and we still need to ask where additional funding actually goes.^[3]

How resources are distributed, staff are assigned and policies are implemented matters just as much. In its 2025 review of primary education, the Cour des comptes identified social and geographical inequalities, declining appeal of the teaching profession and governance problems, despite the resources committed. That report concerns primary schools; it does not by itself describe conditions in high schools. It nonetheless invites scrutiny of both funding and reform: which schools face shortages, what causes them and who is responsible for addressing them?^[4]

Differences between schools can also turn gaps in public provision into burdens for families. Some can make up for missed lessons through private tuition, or seek better conditions by moving home or changing schools. Those options require money, time and information. When compensating for shortcomings depends increasingly on family resources, equal opportunity becomes harder to achieve. The promise of public education matters particularly to students with the fewest alternatives.

The government has begun to respond. Measures announced on 26 October include additional teaching posts, a phased reduction in class sizes in seconde, the first year of general and technological high school, 15,000 additional higher-education places in 2027–2028, and reform of Parcoursup. For buildings, the government announced €4 billion in preferential loans to support local-authority investment, alongside €1 billion for campus construction and renovation. These measures use different forms of funding and have different deadlines; implementation needs to be tracked separately.^[5]

Recruiting teachers, renovating buildings and opening courses all take time and organisational capacity. That makes it all the more necessary to publish arrangements that can be tracked: when will vacancies be filled? Which works will begin first? Where will places be created, and with what staff and funding? Students and parents need to know what remedies are available while they wait, and what evidence will show, at the next progress report, that promises are being fulfilled.

The debate over admissions particularly needs this level of detail. The joint platform promoted by Union étudiante and USL calls for an end to selection through Parcoursup and Mon Master while retaining national, centralised application tools. This is the position of those organisations, not the opinion of every student. It nevertheless makes clear that the dispute also concerns how opportunities to study are distributed.^[6]

A new admissions system needs to explain how applicants are assessed, how rejections are justified and whether students from different areas and backgrounds receive sufficient guidance. A more transparent process must also match real teaching capacity: additional places need teachers, classrooms and educational support. Ultimately, a reform’s success must be judged by the learning opportunities it creates.

This is why education matters beyond the school gates. The young people in today’s classrooms will go on to work in hospitals, schools, businesses, laboratories and public services. Their knowledge, judgement and ability to cooperate will shape that work. Gaps in foundational learning or guidance often require individuals and society to make greater efforts to put them right later.

School also shapes how young people understand public life. When problems receive serious attention, rules can be understood and promises are kept, they have more reason to believe that effort matters and that public institutions deserve their trust. If promises remain far removed from daily experience, that trust becomes fragile. Education policy is therefore also about how a society shows the next generation that they are respected and have a future in which they can participate and make their voices heard.

Students have a right to a good education now. Protecting that right also builds the professional skills, creativity and public trust a country will need. The people on whom society will depend in years to come are being shaped by the learning conditions provided to them today.

The credibility of making education a priority rests in these details: a lesson finally has a teacher, a classroom has been repaired, a student receives clear guidance about their next steps. The skills and trust that society will need are taking shape in today’s classrooms. If the nation places education first, students should be able to experience that commitment being fulfilled in their everyday lives.