‘Digital pause’: France pilots school mobile phone ban

PARIS: Tens of thousands of pupils in France are going through a slightly different return to school this autumn, deprived of their mobile phones.

At 180 “colleges”, the middle schools French children attend between the ages of 11 and 15, a scheme is being trialled to ban the use of mobile phones during the entire school day.

The trial of the “pause numerique” (“digital pause”), which encompasses more than 50,000 pupils, is being implemented ahead of a possible plan to enforce it nationwide from 2025.

Right now, pupils in French middle schools must turn off their phones. The experiment takes things further, requiring children to hand in their phones on arrival.

It is part of a move by President Emmanuel Macron for children to spend less time in front of screens, which the government fears is arresting their development.

The use of “a mobile phone or any other electronic communications terminal equipment” has been banned in nurseries, elementary schools and middle schools in France since 2018.