Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, has controversially come out in favour of making school uniforms compulsory for all French students.
"I wore a uniform as a pupil," she said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper, published on Wednesday. "Fifteen years in a marine blue miniskirt and marine blue jumper. And I thought it was fine. It erases differences, you save time – it's time-wasting to have to choose what to wear in the morning – and money, compared to brands."
She added: "So I'm for wearing uniforms at school: a simple uniform and not a dreary one."
Mandatory school uniforms were first introduced in French secondary school students under Napoleon, but the practice largely disappeared after mass student-led protests in 1968. They are, however, still common in some overseas French territories — including in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana — as well as in military academics and some private schools in mainland France.
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The debate on school uniforms was recently reignited after the far-right Rassemblement National party led by Marine Le Pen filed a motion in the French National Assembly to make them mandatory once again. Le Pen has argued that compulsory school uniforms would help students "avoid the pressure" of "Islamists", and further claimed that they would end "the contest to wear the most expensive, most luxurious, most fashionable clothes".
It is believed that the National Assembly will reject the motion, which is staunchly opposed by French leftists as well as France's current Education Minister, Pap Ndiaye.
