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1. Existence of a National Youth Strategy

2. Scope and contents

3. Responsible authority for the implementation of the Youth Strategy

4. Revisions/updates

Existence of a National Youth Strategy

The presidential elections of April 2022 and the renewal of the government mark changes in the governance of youth policies. The development, control and implementation of youth policies are assigned by decree to the Ministry of Education and Youth.

From 2013 to 2017, a youth strategy existed: the Priority Youth Plan ( Plan Priorité Jeunesse), adopted by the Cross-ministerial committee for Youth (Comité Interministériel de la Jeunesse - CIJ) on 21 February 2013. Several policies of this youth strategy are still relevant. For the moment (2024-2024) there is no new strategy for youth. 

Current public policies in favor of youth are articulated  mainly around education, training, commitment and autonomy. It should be pointed out that these public policies do not form, strictly speaking, a "strategy" since they are not formalized in one plan or road map, but nevertheless they must meet several and general objectives, as defined by the 2022 budget law on youth policy:

• Participate in the personal development of young people, foster their engagement and mobility;
• Give priority to education, guidance and training;
• Promote employment and professional integration;
• Fight against inequalities in the path to autonomy;

• Improving living conditions.

   

Scope and contents

The goal of public youth policies is to create “a society of trust”. By acting on young people’s training and commitment and fostering their autonomy, government policies seek to ensure “society’s trust in its young people and young people’s trust in society”.

The main focuses of action are:

• Education and training
• Commitment (The youth engagement)
• Autonomy

Education and training

The training of young people is at the heart of governmental youth policies which wants to build a "school of trust" to ensure pupils'sucess. Several measures concerning primary and secondary schools have been implemented.

At primary school:

• The gradual doubling of CP and CE1 classes (ISCED 1 ; elementary education) in schools located in disadvantaged urban areas and covered by so-called 'priority education'. The objective of the priority education policy 'is to correct the impact of social and economic inequalities on educational success by strengthening pedagogical and educational action in schools and establishments in areas with the greatest social difficulties'.
• The adaptation of school rhythms by leaving it up to the communes (local authorities, academic services, school educational teams, parents' representatives) to decide whether to switch to a four-day school week.
• The implementation of a "Wednesday plan", the objective of which is to promote "a new coherence and a new dynamic" in the range of activities offered to children between their school time and their extracurricular time

At middle school:

• The introduction of the "homework done" programme, which offers free supervised study time for schoolchildren outside school hours. The supervision of pupils is voluntary and can be carried out by :

-teachers and archivist in charge of documentation centers;

-the main education advisers (conseiller principal d'éducation - CPE)

-educational assistants

-approved associations that provide homework help

-volunteers and civic service volunteers

- The adjustment of the 2015 middle school reform, which it meant to give greater autonomy to schools.

At high school:

Initiated in 2018, the reform of the general and technological baccalaureate (baccalauréat), the national diploma at the end of secondary education and the first degree of higher education, consist of initiatives reducing the number of tests and introducing continuous assessment. This new baccalaureate came into force in 2021.

This reform is linked to the reform of the high school (lycée), which abolishes the three general streams: economic and social, literary, and scientific, and introduces a system of specialities.

The baccalauréat is the final exam of the last year of secondary school. It is a national diploma awarded at the end of secondary education (international ISCED level 3) in the general, technological or vocational streams.

A reflection on the reform of the high school courses and the baccalaureate tests was initiated in 2017. The first edition of the fully 'renewed' baccalauréat was held in 2021. The reform introduces many elements, which were maintained until the 2023 edition of the baccalauréat. Those elements include changes, throughout the school year, such as the introduction of three options "à la carte" instead of specialized curriculums (economic and social ; litterary ; scientific), or th egrowing importance of continuous tests in core subjects for evaluation compared to final exams. Moreover, mathematics, which had bee removed from the core curriculum of general education in première and terminale (last years of ISCED 3), have been reintroduced in 2022.

Higher education

The Parcoursup platform allows high school students, apprentices or students to pre-register, to submit their wishes for further study and to respond to admission proposals from institutions.

The platform introduces the notion and principle of 'expectations' on the part of higher education institutions, which are based on the charter 'For a shared implementation of training courses in the service of student success' drawn up by the Ministry of Education and Youth, and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. The charter defines the expectations as "the knowledge and skills necessary for success in each field of study". They correspond to what teachers expect in terms of knowledge or skills on entry to each higher education course". Furthermore, the expectations must be "formalised by the institutions" and "facilitate and improve exchanges between higher education and secondary education stakeholders".

The construction of a guidance project is one of the cornerstones of the high school and baccalaureate reforms, one of the objectives of which is to prepare young people for their access to higher education.

The youth engagement

Stepping up young people’s commitment at the service of society is one of the Government’s major goals and a key focus of youth policies. It has been given concrete expression by development of the civic service and by the implementation of a new commitment scheme, Universal National Service (Service national universel - SNU) in 2018.

Universal National Service fulfills several objectives:

• “transmission of Republican values”
• “strengthening of social cohesion – which relies on experience of social and territorial mixity "
• “development of a culture of commitment and assistance with social and professional integration”.

It targets all young people between 15 and 17 years of age (for the first two phases) and is organised into three phases:

1. a two-week cohesion stay, spent in collective accommodation in a département (local authority) other than that in which the volunteer lives. During the stay, young volunteers take part in a variety of collective activities including introductions to the Highway Code and administration of first aid.
2. a general interest mission at an association, local authority department or public service, aiming to develop a culture of commitment and foster young people’s integration into society.
3. the possibility of voluntary commitment for at least 3 months, making use of existing volunteering schemes: civic service, the Armed Forces’ and National Gendarmerie’s operational reserves, volunteer firefighters, European Solidarity Corps, etc. This phase is opened to volunteers between 16 and 30 years of age.

The autonomy of young people

According to the speech of the former Minister of Education and Youth at the Youth advisory council on June 29th, 2017, the autonomy policies aim at developping the young people’s autonomy  are articulated around three axes 

1. the fight against the non-use of social rights;

2. the territorialisation of youth policies;

3. the synergy of the actors.

Responsible authority for the implementation of the Youth Strategy

Youth policies have been placed under the authority of various ministries in the last decade. Formerly, Youth policies were under the ministry of Urban affairs, Youth and Sports (2014-2017) before being placed under the ministry of Education and Youth (that included sports policies in an alternating manner between 2020 and 2024).

Since February 2024, youth policies are under the authority of the Ministry of Education and Youth, according to the decree of 21 February 2024 on the powers of the Minister of Education and Youth. 

The Ministry of Education and Youth is responsible for:

-developing policies for young people, commitment, popular education and community life

-the regulation of group childcare facilities for minors outside the parental home and outside school hours, and monitoring compliance with this legislation.

Since January 2024, there is also a deputy minister of Childhood, Youth and Family affairs, placed under the authority of the Education and Youth ministry. 

Revisions/updates

The 1 young person 1 solution plan

€9 billion of the €100 billion France Recovery Plan (see section 1.7. Use of EU funds) has been dedicated to the creation of the "1 young person, 1 solution" plan launched in the summer of 2020.

This plan is intended to combat youth unemployment. It has enabled the financing of 130,000 contracts dedicated to young people in 2021. It includes several components, which are promoted on the www.1jeune1solution.gouv.fr platform:

-The publication of job offers, internships, work-study programmes and student jobs

-The publication of training offers to achieve a professional project

-Promotion of the Youth Commitment Contract

-Valuation, on the same platform, of the housing and financial aid for which the young person is eligible with the help of a questionnaire that takes less than five minutes

-Valuation and linking of local missions for local support concerning a pathway and dealing with all integration difficulties: employment, training, orientation, mobility, housing, health, access to culture and leisure

-A platform for creating a personalised CV

-Support for the 1jeune1mentor scheme, launched in 2021 in conjunction with the Collectif Mentorat Association, for matching young people with mentors.