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EACEA National Policies Platform:Eurydice
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France

4.Early childhood education and care

4.1Access

Last update: 31 March 2025
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Guaranteed places

There is no guaranteed place in the early years education and care system for children under the age of 3. For all children aged 3 and over, education has been compulsory since September 2019. 

From the year of their 3rd birthday, families are therefore obliged to send their children to pre-elementary schools, except in the case of instruction in the family or ‘home schooling’ for one of the following reasons:

  • child's state of health;

  • child's disability;

  • child’s involvement in intensive sporting or artistic activities;

  • family's itinerancy in France;

  • geographical distance from any state school;

  • existence of a situation specific to the child that justifies the educational project.

The opening or closing of a school (location, construction, fitting-out of premises) is the responsibility of the local council, but the allocation of the corresponding teaching posts is the responsibility of the local education authorities (DASEN). Similarly, the opening or closing of a class, and therefore the addition or withdrawal of a teacher, are the responsibility of the DASEN and not the Town Council.

Financial accessibility

In pre-elementary education, schooling is free for all families in the public sector, and at a minimal cost in the government-depending private sector.

However, households may have to pay additional costs:

  • catering costs: article R531-52 of the Education Code states that ‘The prices of school meals provided to pupils in nursery schools, elementary schools, collèges and lycées in the public education system are set by the local authority responsible for them’. Municipalities are responsible for the catering service in state pre-elementary and elementary schools;

  • garderie / étude surveillée: his is a service whereby children are looked after outside normal school hours, at the request of their parents.

For these two types of fees, in state education, municipalities can apply a sliding scale of charges based on household income.

Childcare for children under the age of 3 comes at a cost to the family, which generally varies according to the parents' income (collective childcare) or is negotiated with the childminder (individual childcare). In all cases, for children cared for in a collective facility, a minimum of 15% of the cost remains payable by the family each month.