Banned in concept for the reason that status quo of the republican college, corporal punishment has lengthy existed within the extraordinary fact of educating. And once they had been the topic of court cases, the judicial observe used to be, to mention the least, complicated, even variable. The “right to correction” used to be regularly invoked, which the Courtroom of Cassation has simply definitively dominated out.
On January 14, 2026, the Courtroom of Cassation dominated out the life of a “right to correction” that might justify instructional violence towards kids. There is not any “parental right to correction” in French legislation, global texts or trendy jurisprudence, she mentioned in a press unlock.
Whilst in 2023 the daddy used to be sentenced via the primary example courtroom in Thionville to eighteen months in jail with a suspended sentence and to the deprivation of parental authority for violence towards his two minor sons, on April 18, 2024 the Courtroom of Attraction in Metz introduced his unlock within the identify of the “right to correction”.
On the listening to on November 19, 2025 within the Courtroom of Cassation, the reporter identified that positive judgments of the Prison Chamber indisputably confer with parental “right to correction”, however that they’re very previous, and particularly one in all them regularly discussed on this case dates again to 1819.
The best judicial frame due to this fact overturned the acquittal which enraged kid coverage associations. They condemned the step backwards from the so-called “anti-battering” legislation of 2019 which resulted within the following access within the Civil Code:
“Parental authority is exercised without physical or psychological violence.”
The truth that the Courtroom of Cassation needed to ascertain this access into the legislation reminds us that the prohibition of corporal punishment is the results of a protracted historical past and that it encountered a couple of resistances. A definite collection of ambiguities have gave the impression for the reason that beginnings of the republican college.
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Corporal punishment banned since 1887, a extra complicated fact
In concept, corporal punishment has been obviously prohibited in faculties for the reason that founding of the republican college. As early as 1887, the laws for kindergartens indicated that “the only punishments that can be applied are the deprivation, for a short time, of joint work and play or the forfeiture of good points.” The laws for fundamental college in Article 20 officially specify that “it is absolutely forbidden to impose any physical punishment”.
This doesn’t imply that, within the extraordinary fact of categories, it used to be like that, some distance from it. And the entire extra so since, when corporal punishment used to be carried out and the topic of court cases, it kind of feels that the judicial observe used to be, to mention the least, complicated, even changeable.
The Long term Scientist (Donkey Hat) via Henri-Gilles-Jean Geoffroy, 1880 by the use of Wikimedia
Already in 1889, two years after the formal ban on corporal punishment in republican faculties, the Courtroom of Cassation identified lecturers’ proper to correction in the similar manner as folks, only if there is not any extra and that the kid’s well being isn’t endangered.
20 years later, the verdict of the Prison Chamber of the Courtroom of Cassation from December 4, 1908 specified:
“Teachers indisputably have, by the father’s delegation, the right to correct the children entrusted to them; but, of course, this right to correct, in order to remain legitimate, must be limited to the coercive measures necessary to punish the act of indiscipline committed by the child.”
Outstanding “right to correction” at school?
At the foundation of those issues, as an example, the Courtroom of Attraction of Toulouse acquitted on December 18, 1999, the pinnacle of a boarding college within the Foix area. Within the judgment of the Courtroom of Attraction, it is regarded as:
“If Mr. J. happened to hit or kick certain students, kick or folders, it should be remembered that the premeditated element of the offense is absent when the alleged violence is connected with the exercise of the right to correction that belongs to the parents, and to a lesser extent to the teacher. However, in the specific case, it was established that Mr. parents and some of the students presented psychological difficulties and academic delays and disrupted the smooth progress of studies with their behavior.”
Courts normally acknowledge that, within the context of keeping up college self-discipline, lecturers use the outstanding proper to correction with the intention to make sure that the sleek working of categories in a degraded college order, reply to a provocative angle or bodily sanction violence or insults towards lecturers or between scholars.
Lengthy unclear case legislation
In what circumstances used to be the “right to correction” now not allowed at school? Used to be there transparent case legislation in this matter?
Courts hardly ever tolerate a “right to correction” for different functions, similar to punishing deficient process efficiency or deficient efficiency. Thus, the Courtroom of Attraction dominated in 1999 that the trainer who hit (inflicting a big hematoma) a five-year-old pupil who “did not know how to do her job” used to be “guilty of intentional violence”.
The trainer, who continuously shouted on the seven-year-old pupil, threw issues at him, tore up his paintings, mocked him, slapped him and pulled his ears, used to be additionally sentenced on January 23, 2002 via the Courtroom of Attraction in Pau to a six-month suspended jail sentence.
In June 2006, a felony courtroom in Great gave a suspended five-month jail sentence to a kindergarten director: he mistreated his scholars, from time to time kicking them or the use of iron regulations, and used to be responsible of bullying, particularly of youngsters with instructional difficulties.
Corrections should additionally now not exceed a definite depth or take paperwork which are thought to be unacceptable, morally and legally. Thus, the Courtroom of Attraction in Bourge sentenced to a high quality a kindergarten trainer who pretended to chunk a kid’s finger with the intention to put an finish to his competitive habits and repeated biting.
Additionally, the individual in control of the boarding college used to be convicted of kicking a scholar within the again whom he threw to the bottom – despite the fact that he used to be acquitted of slapping and kicking the disruptive pupils who remained status (Courtroom of Attraction of Toulouse, 18 February 1999).
In spite of everything, the foundations of jurisprudence themselves weren’t completely transparent at the subject, even supposing there gave the look to be some fundamental regulations, and no judgment used to be in point of fact positive.
By way of ruling out the life of a parental “right to correction” at first of 2026, the Courtroom of Cassation due to this fact crammed an opening in case legislation.
“That is the top of the theory, regardless of how chronic it’s amongst some judges, that along with the legislation, there used to be additionally a not unusual proper of oldsters to proper their kids (…). The legislation from 2019 is apparent and with out exception: in our legislation, so-called instructional violence does now not exist.
Patrice Spinosi, a legal professional for the Mila circle of relatives, informed AFP.
Claude Lelievre does now not paintings for, seek advice from, personal inventory in, or obtain investment from any group that can take pleasure in this text, and has declared no association rather then his personal analysis group.
