In recent years, France has multiplied initiatives to regulate the exposure of young people to digital tools. The ban on social networks before the age of 15 is one of the priority projects, with an age verification project carried out at European level to block access to the most popular platforms. After social networks, it is now the use of the smartphone itself that is in the president’s sights.
A total ban from the start of the 2026 school year
© Tim Mossholder / Unslpash
On November 28, during an exchange with citizens, organized by the regional press group EBRA, Emmanuel Macron announced that smartphones would be banned in all high schools from the start of the 2026 school year. This new rule will apply to all second, first and final year students, everywhere in France. It extends a ban already well established in colleges, where the president judges that it “works rather well” thanks to a clear national framework.
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In high schools, some establishments have tried to impose their own rules, but these experiments are considered inconclusive. The government therefore wants to move to a uniform ban, all by giving freedom to heads of establishment on the concrete modalities. Some will be able to use lockers, others will define strict time slots. The objective remains the same for everyone: to establish a real digital break during school time.
An effect already observed elsewhere
France is not the only one to want to keep phones away from classrooms, since in the United States, several states have already adopted similar measures. In New York, the elimination of smartphones has transformed daily life in high schools, to the point that the corridors have once again become noisy during breaks, where previously a heavy silence reigned.
Teachers welcome a more lively atmosphere, with more exchanges between students and better attention in class. Some high school students even say they have reconnected with Polaroids and words scribbled on paper. Concrete effects that could convince the most reluctant in France. There remains another question that more and more parents are asking, well beyond the school setting.
By: Keleops AG
