School dress code for pupils rarity in France

CHERIE SIVIGNON

DAPPER DRESSER: Hugo Sivignon, 12, in his new school uniform.

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OPINION: He looked so dapper, writes Cherie Sivignon in this week's L'expat.

My eldest child, Hugo, aged 12, had to don his school uniform for the first time last week. It was a first for him and a first for his French school, Sainte-Croix Des Neiges.

Hugo was still at primary school when we lived in New Zealand and, like most, it had no uniform.

After our arrival in France three years ago, Hugo continued to wear his own clothes, including last year — his first year in high school (year 7 equivalent).

However, Sainte-Croix Des Neiges, the private high school he attends, has just introduced a uniform.

This requirement for pupils to wear standard dress is a big break from the norm in modern France. I know of no other school with a uniform code.

Indeed, the pupils of France are known for wearing motley ensembles — as long as it doesn't include a headscarf, of course.

I'm sure you all remember the hullabaloo in 2004 when proudly secular France passed a law banning conspicuous religious apparel in public schools. Yes, that includes large crucifixes and Jewish yarmulkes, but it was the Muslim hijab or headscarf that drew the controversy.

I have read in some newspapers and magazines about a muted call for a return to uniforms in French public schools. They were phased out in 1968 in a post-riot mood of individual freedom.

Several reasons are behind the recent call for a return to uniforms:
• There is angst about the cost of the designer clothes favoured by French teenagers (like their peers worldwide, I suspect).
• There is a belief that a uniform could provide another defence to keep religious effects out of the classroom.
• There is concern about girls dressing in ways described as provocative by some. Indeed, MP Eric Raoult complained a couple of years ago that girls in the Paris area when he lives were going to school dressed in a dangerously "provocative" way, with jeans so low you could see their pierced navels. "They would not get into a nightclub dressed like that," he was quoted as saying.

Ha! That was never a problem in the French Alps where I live, with snow half the year and temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees celsius.

I'm just happy that Hugo doesn't (yet) mind wearing his uniform, which consists of a shirt, tie, jumper and blazer. He can wear the trousers of his choice and there's no demand for red shoes. Hugo's school has also included a sports uniform of T-shirt, shorts, sweat pants and sweatshirt, along with a ski jacket for snow sports in the winter.

In a sad aside, we said goodbye to my niece, Alana, on Saturday. She's due to touch down back in New Zealand this morning. Alana, 18, spent nine months in Europe, chunks of it with us, and we miss her already. Au revoir ma petite.

» Cherie Sivignon is a former Southland Times journalist who has moved to France with her French-born husband and their family.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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