FRANCE’S PARLIAMENT has adopted a proposal to suspend certain social welfare payments for parents whose children are regularly absent from school.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has described truancy as a “cancer” that should be made an “absolute priority”, and the law was passed despite strong resistance from the opposition and teachers’ unions.
“For certain families, help and dialogue are not enough. Some families refuse to exert their authority over their child, giving free rein to their absenteeism,” education minister Luc Chatel said, adding that suspension of benefits would be a “last resort”.
Under the new law, a school principal who notices a pupil has been absent without good cause for at least four half-days in a month will report that child to the local education authority.
That office will then send a warning to the child’s family and advise them of local services that might be of assistance. If the absenteeism continues for another month, education officials will be “obliged” to instruct that family allowances be suspended. The payments can resume if the child returns and regular attendance is recorded for a full month.
Opposing the Bill, Marie-Christine Blandin of the Greens described it as a “simplistic, inefficient, populist and aggressive” measure and “a new form of double-punishment for the poorest people”.
Other opponents said truancy remained a marginal problem. “It has gone from 6 to 7 per cent,” said Marie-Agnès Labarde, a communist senator. “It’s not exactly an explosion.”
Despite strong opposition and a lukewarm reception from some ruling UMP party deputies, opinion polls show general support. A survey last April found two-thirds of voters in favour of suspending benefits.
Parents already have civil responsibility for their children’s actions, but Mr Sarkozy said earlier this year he wanted to make them criminally responsible for delinquency. The feasibility has already been greeted with scepticism from legal experts, however. “The whole spirit of French penal law rests on the will to act – without the intentional element there cannot be an offence,” said lawyer Jean-Yves Liénard.