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National law and policies on minimum ages – France

 

According to the CRC, laws and policies must be directed to the best interest of the child. This is especially so in provisions that aim to safeguard the child against exploitation or an early end to childhood, i.e. in the instances where children are most vulnerable and at risk. Yet such safeguards are often ignored and different areas of legislation found to clash with each other. What happens if the age for the end of compulsory education is 14 but the minimum age of employment is 12? Or vice versa? What if a girl can be married before school leaving age - will she then return to school? And who ensures schooling in prisons, when in reality education should protect children from incarceration?

 

 

 

 

With 192 parties to it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified UN treaty. Each State Party must submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which uses this process to monitor State compliance with the treaty. The vast majority of the information on minimum ages presented on these pages is taken directly from such reports (occasionally, if these failed to include relevant information concerning minimum ages, other components of the reporting process - such as the Committee’s Concluding Observations - were consulted). States Parties’ reports constitute self-assessment by governments and are therefore authoritative sources, emanating directly from those empowered to make decisions. Using this type of sources also permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC. The sections of these reports have been reproduced faithfully, and readers are encouraged to make use of the full original text, available here.

 

Individual country reports are often written by diverse parts of the government, and frequently run to more than 100 pages. Moreover, within some states’ legal systems there are various recognised sources of law, which frequently generate conflicting minimum ages. Distilling precise numbers out of such documents is therefore a precarious task. While we would encourage cross-country comparison, we would also stress the danger that those countries with a more honest engagement with the reporting process might come off worse when compared with those which would mis-represent the degree of compliance, whether wilfully or not. For a full explanation of the principles that guided us in our analysis, please visit the introductory pages here.

 

Sources:

3rd and 4th periodic reports combined: CRC/C/FRA/4, 21 February 2008
Initial report: CRC/C/3/Add.15, 4 June 1993
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 3rd and 4th reports combined
511. (f) Compulsory school education applies to pupils from the age of 6 to 16.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From initial report
406. Young people are not allowed to work before they have been duly released from their obligation to attend school, in other words before they are 16 years of age. Young people can take up an apprenticeship at 15 years. During the school holidays, adolescents aged from 14 years may perform light work within the limits and in accordance with the formalities established by law.
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 3rd and 4th reports combined
125. The minimum legal age for marriage for women is now aligned with that for men, rising from 15 to 18 years and ending a difference that has existed since 1804. Dispensations for serious reasons may, however, be granted by the Public Prosecutor.
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 3rd and 4th reports combined
129. The French Government reminds the Committee that, whilst no age threshold is explicitly fixed by French law for the criminal responsibility of a minor, as the judge assesses the minor’s capacity for understanding case by case, minors under the age of 13 are liable only to protective or cautionary measures.
578. While Law No. 2002-1138 of 9 September 2002 for the orientation and programming of the justice system amended the provisions dealing with the detention of minors from ten to thirteen years old, it retained the special guarantees attaching to the procedure. It is only in exceptional cases that a minor between the ages of ten and thirteen against whom there is strong or corroborated evidence giving grounds to believe that that individual has committed or attempted a serious crime or other major offence punishable by at least five years’ imprisonment may, where necessary for the investigation, be held at the disposal of a police officer with the prior agreement of a specialist judge and under his or her supervision.
 
Sources:
3rd and 4th periodic reports combined: CRC/C/FRA/4, 21 February 2008
Initial report: CRC/C/3/Add.15, 4 June 1993