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French ‘first lady’ backs calls for controversial school uniforms

France's first lady Brigitte Macron says she backs the idea of school uniforms, as the far right is pushing in parliament to make a unified dress code mandatory nationwide.

Published: 12 January 2023 17:35 CET

French 'first lady' backs calls for controversial school uniforms

French President's wife Brigitte Macron. Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP

Uniforms have never been compulsory in all state schools in mainland France, and the education minister is against any such law.

The president’s wife, a 69-year-old former high school drama teacher, said she had worn a uniform at school in an interview with Le Parisien Daily published Wednesday.

“I wore a uniform as a pupil: 15 years of dark blue short skirt, dark blue jumper. And I thought it was fine,” she said, responding to a question from a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

“It erases differences, it saves time. It’s time-consuming to choose what to wear in the morning, and costs money” to buy brands, she added.

“So I’m in favour of school uniforms, but if it’s a simple outfit — and not too drab.”

The topic was one of many covered in the interview conducted by seven members of the public, from sexual harassment and mobile phones in school to spelling and the juice she makes President Emmanuel Macron for breakfast.

Mandatory outfits were first introduced in France for secondary school students under Napoleon, according to historian Claude Lelievre.

Some state schools kept them on until as late as the 1960s, but the practice largely disappeared after the student-led protests of May 1968.

Today, uniforms are only worn in rare cases such as military academies or some private schools.

They are however more common in France’s overseas territories: a third of all state schools in Martinique, for example, require them.

The far-right Rassemblement National, led by Marine Le Pen, included a school uniform bill among seven laws it proposed on Thursday in the National Assembly.

Le Pen has defended a compulsory dress code as a way to “avoid the pressure” of “Islamists”. She also argues it would end “the contest to wear the most expensive, most luxurious, most fashionable clothes”.

Although the bill is expected to receive support from the right-wing Les Républicains, it is thought likely the Assembly will reject it.

The president’s centre-right block Renaissance is divided over the issue, and Education Minister Pap Ndiaye has repeatedly said he is against.

“I don’t want a law on the issue,” he said last week, adding that schools were already free to impose uniforms if they wanted.

The left is also staunchly opposed.

Hard-left La France Insoumise lawmaker Alexis Corbière said on Thursday the real problem was access to a good education, noting that many privileged families sent their children to private schools

“Wearing the same T-shirt and the same short skirt won’t solve the problem,” he said.

Green MP Sandrine Rousseau also argued that uniforms would not reduce inequality in education.

“You just need to massively invest in state schools, correctly pay the teachers,” she wrote on Twitter.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.