From the spring, around a hundred voluntary schools, colleges and high schools will experiment with wearing a unique outfit. This is what the package prepared by the government looks like.
“We must rediscover the sense of symbolism. The outfit is not innocent,” declared Emmanuel Macron at a press conference on Tuesday January 16. With this in mind, the President of the Republic announced the experimentation of a “unique outfit” in around a hundred voluntary schools, starting in the spring. The project had already been carried out for several months by Gabriel Attal, before he left the Ministry of Education for Matignon.
What will this uniform look like? To make the task easier for voluntary local authorities, the government has developed a kit. Le Figaro revealed its contents this Saturday, January 20: the unique outfit offered to students from primary to high school consists of a white or gray polo shirt, a navy blue sweater and anthracite gray pants. The choice fell on a “sportswear” and mixed outfit, “to avoid controversies”, says a person close to the file on a daily basis. For kindergarten students, the blouse will be back in use.
This set will not cost parents a single penny. It will be supported by the State and by the local authority responsible for the establishment: the municipality for schools, the department for middle schools, the region for high schools. By contributing half of the financial cost, the government hopes to rally communities of diverse sociological profiles into the experiment. For now, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region has volunteered through its president, Laurent Wauquiez, as have cities like Nice, Metz and Perpignan, all led by the right.
Three companies will work on the production of these “made in France” uniforms, for some 20,000 to 25,000 students affected by the experiment. A small scratch will allow communities to slightly personalize the outfit in their establishments.