Back to school 2026: Emmanuel Macron defends the ban on cell phones in high school

The president is in a high school in Lozère on Tuesday, in the company of the Minister of National Education, in particular to discuss the ban on cell phones, one of the new features of this return to school.

The last start of his five-year term. While 11.6 million young people return to class, Emmanuel Macron is at the Chaptal high school in Mende (Lozère), Tuesday September 1, to defend the ban on cell phones. These devices, just like social networks, "take away students' attention", argued the Head of State to the students. For his part, Edouard Geffray, Minister of Education, denounced a “form of addiction” to screens, which he considers a “health emergency”, while recognizing that the measure will be “a little difficult to respect at first”.

A major cyberattack targeted National Education. Revealed at the end of July by the ministry, the hack led to the preventive suspension of numerous digital tools. If a return to normal has been announced in 28 of the 30 academies, those of Toulouse and Nantes remain seriously disrupted.

Sexual violence in the viewfinder. Among the other major new features for this school year, questions on gender-based and sexual violence will be added to the annual questionnaire on school harassment distributed each year to students, from the main section to the final year. “The results risk being seismic,” warned Edouard Geffray.

A series of new features. Among the other changes expected this year are the possibility of excluding a student due to the behavior of their parents, the organization of a compulsory ceremony around November 11 and the passage of "99.9%" of the written and oral exams for the Brevet and Baccalaureate in the morning from 2027, in order to avoid the high temperatures observed during the last exam sessions.

Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic: "We did not say you do not have the right to have a telephone in high school. We just say within the confines of the high school, as we did within the confines of the college, it is not good to have your telephone. First of all, it is not compatible with being attentive in class and we do not socialize in the same way."

At the Georges-Frêche comprehensive high school in Montpellier, the principal, Catherine Reboul, included this measure in her internal regulations at the end of June. High school students have the right to take out their smartphones in the playground, but not at all inside buildings, whether in the canteen, corridors or classrooms.