The theory of the strict French parent has even translated into a best-selling book – French Kids Don’t Throw Food, which joins other titles of dubious scientific accuracy such as French Women Don’t Get Fat.

But while international obesity rates comprehensively debunk the latter title, strictness of parenting style is rather harder to measure.

And parenting in France, just like everywhere else, also evolves with time.

At present a debate is raging about so-called “positive parenting’ whose advocates, including many psychologists, parenting and children’s organisations and NGOs, campaign for the recognition of the fact that any form of violence – even “light” – experienced in childhood has harmful consequences.

Another group, led by controversial psychologist Caroline Goldman, advocates for ‘old style’ parental authority and defends the right of adults to maintain certain punishments such as the ‘time out’. 

“No scientific study describes as harmful the fact of sending a child to their room,” she argues.

In the middle, there’s everyone else, including parents.

“They are lost. For a long time, sending a child to his or her room was seen as a good way to calm [both] child and adult down and stop the conflict. Now, this method seems to be disavowed,” child psychiatrist Patrick Ben Soussan told Le Parisien recently.

So what is the official line on parenting in France?

Well smacking is out. France finally formally outlawed corporal punishment of children in 2019, when the parental smack – la fessée – was banned. It has been written into the Civil Code and read out to couples when they exchange their marital vows. 

The law took effect, three years after the UN had said it must “explicitly prohibit” all forms of corporal punishment of children but had in reality been on the decline for years in France, as elsewhere.

All new parents are sent a letter from the government, outlining the ‘contract’ between family and state – parents raise their children to the best of their abilities and the state provides the schools, healthcare, leisure services and parks that will help with that.

Schools

Schools in France are notorious for box-tick teaching. Children who don’t conform to accepted ‘norms’ are likely to find their school years more difficult in mainstream education. Things are, slowly, improving, as the country belatedly starts getting to grips with neurodiversity, including autism, but pupils who prefer to study sports or music (for example) may spend a lot of time being bored as they learn maths and French.

And, while many teachers will happily discuss a child’s progress with parents, don’t imagine that all of them will readily amend their methods for a single pupil with particular needs. And while a child is at school, they operate under school rules, some of which may seem somewhat arbitrary.

But outside the official sphere, things are more varied when it comes to how French parents raise their kids.

Restaurants

One of the most frequent observations on French children – often delivered by astonished non-French parents just back from holiday – is about restaurants.

They discuss, in disbelieving tones, small humans sitting quietly, speaking when spoken to, eating child-sized portions of adult meals, while their own children lobbed their lasagne on the floor and ran amok between tables.

Occasionally, you may hear tell of the telling off that followed a French child stepping out of line.

Thing is, those restaurant moments are a snapshot, and not an incredibly accurate one, for both French and non-French parents.

Wait until you’ve spent two hours at a children’s birthday party surrounded by enfants jacked up on sugar and colourants – sweets and high-saccharine juice is all they consume – and you’ll soon change your view.

At such events, parents of invitees routinely ‘kiss and fly’ ahead of a happy couple of child-free hours, leaving the hapless birthday parents to corral a pack of hyped-up kids as best they can.

That, in turn, generally means shrugging shoulders, and letting them fly. As long as nothing and no-one is too badly damaged at the end of it all, adults are generally happy and the children are usually exhausted as they come down from the sugar high.

There’s an unwritten covenant between parents and their children in France. Behave at more ‘adult’ gatherings, such as grandma’s birthday celebrations at the posh restaurant, and the children’s parties are yours to do as you will.

Mealtimes at home

In France, children tend to eat the evening meal between 7pm and 8pm. With their parents.

It’s considered a family occasion, a chance to catch up with each other on the day, and may go some way to explain those restaurant manners. It also explains the importance of the small snack – the goûter – at around 4pm.

Bedtimes

As a result of the later evening meal, bedtimes in France are, routinely, later than numerous other nations. This is not about letting children stay up past their bedtime on a school night, or necessarily being unable to get them to go to bed (though episodes of the French version of reality TV show Super Nanny reveal this does happen in France, too) – it’s simply, mostly, cultural. 

Helicopter parenting

The fact is, and it’s always the case, there’s more nuance to parenting and family life than the debate allows. France has its share of parents who make it look easy, those who are plain bad at it, and everyone else who hopes to be the former and worries about being the latter while doing the best they can in circumstances ranging from the too busy to the too poor.

What you may notice is that – when they’re out – French parents, on the whole, don’t hold with helicopter parenting. It’s very similar to children’s party parenting in that regard. 

They will happily sit and unconcernedly chat with friends while their kids wreak gentle havoc in the immediate vicinity. But don’t make the mistake of thinking this is uncaring or uninterested. It’s most definitely not. 

Other issues play into how successful they may be – it’s easy to appear a ‘perfect parent’ in public when you can cover the costs, for example. But money alone doesn’t make you a good parent… and appearances can be deceiving.

There’s no doubt attitudes towards parenting in France are changing – but those who equate that with a “decline in parenting standards” really should take a hard look at themselves.