France

Previous reports: 2023/24

Principal EBCO concerns

• Military-themed programmes form obligatory parts of the education curriculum (Day of Defence and Citizenship).

• Plans to introduce a mandatory “Universal National Service” for young people of ages 15-17.

As reported by Christian Renoux on behalf of the Mouvement international de la Réconciliation (MIR France):²

Developments

In September 2024, the Court of Audit (Cour des Comptes) issued a very harsh report on the proposed SNU (Universal National Service) noting that “the conditions under which the system is implemented are unsatisfactory, and that its development has not been accompanied by clarification of its objectives, which remain uncertain“.

On 16th January 2025, the Senate eliminated the budgetary appropriations allocated to the deployment of the SNU but the government continues to defend Emmanuel Macron's flagship scheme.

Conscription provisions and procedures

In 1997, conscription was suspended by law (not abolished), along with the possibility to request recognition as a conscientious objector. The last conscripts left the barracks in November 2001. The government then opted to professionalise the army.

During the presidential campaign of 2017, a new element emerged when Emmanuel Macron as candidate proposed the re-establishment of a national service in the armed forces and the gendarmerie, which would create against a time of crisis a “mobilisation reservoir supplementary to the National Guard.” This was subsequently elaborated by the government (without a vote in the Parliament) as a Service National Universel or SNU (Universal National Service) which would be obligatory for all young people, male and female, between the ages of 15 and 17 and with the aim to convey “French values”, to strengthen social cohesion and to promote social engagement, emphasising that it is not a matter of reintroducing conscription.

The first experiment of the SNU is launched in 2019 in thirteen departments on a voluntary basis with 2,000 young people. COVID caused the cancellation of the programme planned for 2020, however in 2021, 14,650 young volunteers from all the country took part, a number rising to 32,000 in 2022 and 40,000 in 2023 and in 2024, still however only a small fraction of the 800,000 or so per annum who would be involved were it to become compulsory, as it is planned, in 2026 (according to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's announcement in January 2024).

The first part of this service is a sejour de cohesion (summer camp) of twelve days spent in uniform, and featuring activities such as daily raising of the flag, singing of the Marseillaise and parade ground drills. The second part is a placement of not less than 84 hours of service in the public interest, including in voluntary organisations, the police, the gendarmerie, the fire service, civil defence and the armed forces; a third, optional and non-obligatory, element is a period of six to twelve months paid service to be undertaken between the ages of 18 and 25 in the same areas. Some of this, for example “civil service” caring for the disabled, would incorporate voluntary programmes which are already in existence; others would where relevant entail becoming a full member of the armed forces, albeit on a temporary basis.

Widespread opposition and legal and logistical problems have delayed until now the scheme to become compulsory. Another aspect which the voluntary pilot schemes do not address was the likelihood of a high refusal rate in an obligatory programme. It is not yet clear what the consequences of refusal will be.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee which reported on 8 March 2023 pointed out the logistical difficulties and enormous cost of “generalising” the scheme; As detailed above in Developments, the Court of Audit has since published a critique of the plans, while in 2025 the Senate eliminated the budgetary allocations.

The Collective “NON au SNU” REF was founded in 2019 bringing together some forty associations, trade unions, political parties, youth movements, neighbourhood groups etc. It denounced the SNU as representing the repression of youth, a threat to workers rights, a waste of money and a reinforcement of militarisation.

Because of the target age range, the SNU cannot be defined as military service. Nevertheless somehow it aspires to use its link with national defence and the military to evade the International Labour Office's definition of forced labour, embodied in Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the only permitted exceptions are work performed as part of a penal sentence or military service (including alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors).

Meanwhile, it undeniably represents a reimposition of a form of conscription, and given the overtly militaristic nature of the concept, and many of the actual placements, some provision for conscientious objection would clearly be appropriate.

Militarisation of the education system

After ending conscription in 1997, France created a mandatory one-day programme for high school students called the "Day of Defence and Citizenship". This programme aims to teach students about citizenship and national defence, and to inform them about military careers.

Students who do not attend this day cannot take the final high school exam (baccalaureat), get a driver's licence, register for university or apply for civil service jobs. No provisions exist to obtain exemption on grounds of conscientious objection.

1. Population and armed forces figures are derived from The Military Balance 2025, published by the international Institute for Strategic Studies; military expenditure figures are estimates published by SIPRI (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) in April 2025. ⤴
2. More info about the organisation at: https://mirfrance.org/MIR/⤴