You moved your family from Kent to the Dordogne, or from Manchester to the Var, and you assumed that home education would work in France the way home education works in England: a deregistration letter to the school, a notification to the local authority, and you carry on teaching at the kitchen table. That assumption is the single most dangerous misunderstanding a British parent can bring across the Channel. Since the start of the September 2022 school year, teaching your child at home in France without the prior written permission of the State is unlawful, and the criminal courts have now confirmed that good teaching, honestly given, does not excuse the missing piece of paper. On 10 June 2026 the criminal chamber of the Cour de cassation, France’s highest criminal court, rejected the appeals of two parents who had taught their children at home, had undergone positive inspections, and had refused on principle to file an application. The message for British families is blunt: the quality of your teaching is judged at the application stage, not as a defence afterwards.

This guide explains the French system of instruction en famille, literally instruction within the family, the term French law uses for what British readers call home-schooling or home education. It sets out who needs permission, the four statutory reasons for which permission can be granted, how and when to apply to the directeur académique des services de l’éducation nationale, the academic director of State education services in your département, universally shortened to Dasen, what the annual inspection involves, and the exact appeal route when the answer is no. Every decisive statement below is anchored in the text of the Education Code, the Criminal Code, the Code of Administrative Justice, or the June 2026 ruling, quoted word for word. French terms are explained at first use, because this article is written for a British reader dealing with a French administration that corresponds, decides, and prosecutes in French.

I. Do British parents need permission to home-school their child in France?

Yes, without exception. French law starts from a rule that surprises many British parents: Article L. 131-1 of the Education Code provides that “L’instruction est obligatoire pour chaque enfant dès l’âge de trois ans et jusqu’à l’âge de seize ans”, which means that instruction is compulsory for every child from the age of three until the age of sixteen. The obligation attaches to the child living in France, and the official service-public.fr information page confirms that a child living in France may be educated in the family whatever nationality the child holds. British nationality therefore changes nothing. Your child does not need to be French, you do not need to hold a particular residence permit for the schooling rules to apply to you, and the fact that home education is lightly regulated in England and Wales gives you no passport to carry that regime into France. What matters is residence: once your child of compulsory school age lives in France, French schooling law governs the family, and that law gives priority to school attendance. Article L. 131-1-1 of the Education Code closes its definition of the child’s right to instruction with the sentence “Cette instruction obligatoire est assurée prioritairement dans les établissements d’enseignement”, meaning compulsory instruction is provided as a priority in teaching establishments. Home instruction is the exception, school is the rule, and that hierarchy runs through every decision a Dasen takes.

The permission requirement itself is stated in the first article every British applicant should read in full. Article L. 131-5 of the Education Code provides: “Les personnes responsables d’un enfant soumis à l’obligation scolaire définie à l’article L. 131-1 doivent le faire inscrire dans un établissement d’enseignement public ou privé ou bien, à condition d’y avoir été autorisées par l’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation, lui donner l’instruction en famille.” In ordinary English: the people responsible for a child of compulsory school age must enrol the child in a public or private teaching establishment or, on condition of having been authorised by the competent State education authority, give the child instruction within the family. Note the architecture of that sentence. Enrolment is the default duty. Home instruction is lawful only where an authorisation has already been granted, before teaching begins. The same article adds that the same steps must be completed within eight days of any change of residence, a detail that catches British families who move house between départements mid-year and assume their authorisation travels with them. It does not travel automatically: the Dasen of the new département of residence must be informed, and the file follows the child, not the parents’ assumptions.

This authorisation regime is recent. It was created by Act No. 2021-1109 of 24 August 2021 reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic, which replaced the old yearly declaration system with a permission system, and the version of Article L. 131-5 now in force applies from 1 September 2022. Families who home-educated in France under the pre-2022 declaration, or who home-educate in England under the English notification system, sometimes tell British newcomers that a letter to the authorities is enough. It is not, and it has not been for four school years. The June 2026 Cour de cassation ruling examined below was precisely a case of parents who relied on their established practice and their principles instead of filing the application, and the court upheld their convictions. Before looking at that ruling, it is worth understanding the four doors the statute leaves open, because a British family that walks through the correct door, with the correct file, in the correct months, is normally granted permission without difficulty.

A. Which reasons can support your home-schooling application?

Article L. 131-5 allows authorisation only on four statutory grounds, and the text of Article L. 131-5 states the exclusivity twice over: “L’autorisation mentionnée au premier alinéa est accordée pour les motifs suivants, sans que puissent être invoquées d’autres raisons que l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant : 1° L’état de santé de l’enfant ou son handicap ; 2° La pratique d’activités sportives ou artistiques intensives ; 3° L’itinérance de la famille en France ou l’éloignement géographique de tout établissement scolaire public ; 4° L’existence d’une situation propre à l’enfant motivant le projet éducatif, sous réserve que les personnes qui en sont responsables justifient de la capacité de la ou des personnes chargées d’instruire l’enfant à assurer l’instruction en famille dans le respect de l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant.” In English: the authorisation is granted on the following grounds, with no reasons other than the best interests of the child capable of being invoked: first, the child’s state of health or disability; second, the intensive practice of sporting or artistic activities; third, the family’s itinerancy within France or geographical remoteness from any public school; fourth, a situation specific to the child that motivates the educational project, provided those responsible show that the person or persons who will teach the child are capable of providing home instruction consistently with the child’s best interests. The best interests of the child, l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant, is therefore both the ceiling and the floor: nothing outside the four grounds qualifies, and everything inside them is measured against the child, never against the parents’ philosophy, pedagogy, or convenience.

Each ground has its own evidential burden, fixed by regulation, and British families should match their situation to the ground honestly rather than forcing it. Where the application relies on the child’s health, Article R. 131-11-2 of the Education Code requires that “Lorsque la demande d’autorisation est motivée par l’état de santé de l’enfant, elle comprend un certificat médical de moins d’un an sous pli fermé attestant de la pathologie de l’enfant”, a medical certificate less than a year old, in a sealed envelope, attesting the child’s condition, which the Dasen forwards unopened to the education authority’s doctor for an opinion. Disability cases require the medical certificate used for the disability file or the decisions of the CDAPH, the commission des droits et de l’autonomie des personnes handicapées, the commission on the rights and autonomy of disabled persons. An authorisation granted on health or disability grounds can run for up to three school years instead of one, which is the only multi-year permission the system offers. Sporting and artistic intensity must be shown by enrolment with a sporting or artistic body plus a presentation of the child’s timetable proving assiduous school attendance is impossible. Itinerancy and remoteness require any useful evidence of the impossibility of regular attendance, a ground that suits travelling families and genuinely isolated rural households, not parents who simply live a twenty-minute drive from the village school.

Most British applications in practice go through the fourth ground, the child-specific situation, and this is where the file is heaviest. Article R. 131-11-5 of the Education Code demands a written educational project describing the teaching approach and methods for each area of the common foundation of knowledge, skills and culture, the resources and materials used, the organisation of the child’s time, and any distance-learning body involved; evidence of the availability of the teaching person; a copy of that person’s baccalauréat diploma or equivalent; and a sworn statement that instruction will be given mostly in French. Three points in that list deserve underlining for British readers. First, the diploma condition: a British parent relying on A-levels, Scottish Highers, or a university degree does not automatically fail, because the same article provides that “Le directeur académique des services de l’éducation nationale peut autoriser une personne pourvue d’un titre ou diplôme étranger à assurer l’instruction dans la famille, si ce titre ou diplôme étranger est comparable à un diplôme de niveau 4 du cadre national des certifications professionnelles”, meaning the Dasen may accept a foreign qualification comparable to a level 4 diploma of the national framework, the level at which the French baccalauréat sits. A-levels are normally argued to sit at that level, but the comparison is the Dasen’s decision, so attach any official comparability statement you hold and do not treat the point as automatic. Second, the language undertaking: “Une déclaration sur l’honneur de la ou des personnes chargées d’instruire l’enfant d’assurer cette instruction majoritairement en langue française.” A bilingual household that teaches mostly in English, with French as a side subject, does not satisfy this undertaking, and an inspector who finds English-dominant teaching may treat the authorisation conditions as breached. Third, the project must be written, individualised to the child, and mapped to the French socle commun, the common foundation; a generic English-language unschooling statement downloaded from the internet will not survive the interview that the Dasen is entitled to hold with the child, the parents, and the teaching person to assess the family’s capacity.

B. How and when do you apply to the Dasen for permission?

The application goes to the Dasen of the département where the child lives, within a statutory window that is easy to miss from abroad. Article R. 131-11 of the Education Code provides that “Les personnes responsables d’un enfant qui sollicitent la délivrance de l’autorisation d’instruction dans la famille dans les conditions prévues par l’article L. 131-5 adressent leur demande au directeur académique des services de l’éducation nationale du département de résidence de l’enfant entre le 1er mars et le 31 mai inclus précédant l’année scolaire au titre de laquelle cette demande est formulée.” Applications for the coming school year must therefore be sent between 1 March and 31 May inclusive. A British family that completes its move to France in July or August, after the window has closed, is not left without a remedy: the same article allows applications outside the window on grounds that arose afterwards, connected with the child’s health, disability, or geographical remoteness from any public school. A summer arrival in an isolated hamlet, or a health problem diagnosed in June, can therefore still found an in-year application, with evidence that the ground genuinely post-dates 31 May. Families relying on the fourth ground, the child-specific situation, after a summer move face a harder but not hopeless argument, and they should file immediately on arrival rather than teaching first and applying later, because every week of unauthorised teaching is a week of unlawful instruction that a later authorisation does not retroactively cure.

The file itself is standardised. Article R. 131-11-1 of the Education Code states that “Toute demande d’autorisation comporte les pièces suivantes : 1° Un formulaire de demande d’autorisation dont le modèle est fixé par le ministre chargé de l’éducation nationale ; 2° Un document justifiant de l’identité de l’enfant ; 3° Un document justifiant de l’identité des personnes responsables de l’enfant ; 4° Un document justifiant de leur domicile ; 5° Un document justifiant de l’identité de la ou des personnes chargées d’instruire l’enfant lorsqu’il ne s’agit pas des personnes responsables de l’enfant.” To that core file are added the ground-specific documents described above, and, for a child already in school whose physical or moral integrity is at risk, the reasoned opinion of the school head following discussion with the family. For British applicants, two practical warnings matter. Proof of domicile means a French address with supporting bills or a tenancy agreement; a family still house-hunting from the United Kingdom, or living in a holiday home without stable residence, will struggle to constitute the file, and the authorisation attaches to the département of residence in any event. Proof of identity for the child normally means a passport, and a British passport is perfectly acceptable, but the file, the educational project, and all correspondence should be in French or accompanied by a French version, because the Dasen’s services examine in French and the interview is conducted in French. An application drafted only in English, however sincere, signals that the undertaking to teach mostly in French may not be understood, let alone honoured.

Once the file is lodged, the administration works to a clock that protects the applicant. The Dasen acknowledges receipt and may request missing documents within a maximum of fifteen days. The decision must then come within two months of the complete file, and silence means consent, since Article L. 131-5 adds: “En application de l’article L. 231-1 du code des relations entre le public et l’administration, le silence gardé pendant deux mois par l’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation sur une demande d’autorisation formulée en application du premier alinéa du présent article vaut décision d’acceptation.” Keep the acknowledgement of receipt and proof of every document sent, because the two-month period runs from the complete file and only your paper trail proves when completeness was reached. The authorisation, when granted, lasts for the school year, or up to three school years on health or disability grounds, and it must be renewed; there is no acquired right to home-educate indefinitely. One welcome consequence of a granted authorisation is that it counts as a favourable opinion for fee-exempt enrolment of the child with the CNED, the Centre national d’enseignement à distance, the national distance-learning centre, in its regulated class, which gives British families access to structured French-language courses aligned with the national curriculum at no charge beyond the normal conditions. Families covered by the Withdrawal Agreement or holding a long-stay visa and residence permit should also keep their immigration position in order in parallel, since schooling disputes never improve an unsettled residence position, a subject examined in the companion guide to first residence steps and refusals for British newcomers.

II. What happens if the inspection fails or your application is refused?

Permission is the beginning of supervision, not the end of it. French home instruction is monitored through two parallel tracks, the mayor’s enquiry and the education authority’s inspection, and a refusal of authorisation opens a short, staged appeal route that must be used quickly. British parents should understand both tracks before they need them, because the deadlines for challenge run in days and weeks, not months, and because the criminal law stands behind the whole structure. Nothing in this section should alarm a family that applied properly, teaches in line with its project, and cooperates with inspections; the controls are routine for compliant families. They become serious only where authorisation is missing, conditions are breached, or inspections are refused, and the June 2026 ruling shows exactly where that road ends.

A. How do the mairie enquiry and the annual inspection of home-schooling work?

The first track belongs to the mayor. Article L. 131-10 of the Education Code provides that “Les enfants soumis à l’obligation scolaire qui reçoivent l’instruction dans leur famille, y compris dans le cadre d’une inscription dans un établissement d’enseignement à distance, sont dès la première année, et tous les deux ans, l’objet d’une enquête de la mairie compétente, uniquement aux fins de vérifier la réalité des motifs avancés par les personnes responsables de l’enfant pour obtenir l’autorisation mentionnée à l’article L. 131-5, et s’il leur est donné une instruction dans la mesure compatible avec leur état de santé et les conditions de vie de la famille.” From the first year and then every two years, the mairie, the town hall, enquires into whether the stated grounds for authorisation are real and whether the child is actually being taught, compatibly with health and family circumstances, and the parents must supply a medical follow-up certificate for the child. If the mayor’s enquiry is not carried out, the State’s representative in the département orders it, so it cannot simply be waited out. British families in small communes sometimes experience this enquiry as a visit or a summons to the town hall; it is administrative verification, not a judgment on parenting, and the way to pass it is documentary: authorisation, evidence the ground persists, evidence the child is learning.

The second track belongs to the education authority and goes to pedagogy. The same article continues, in the text of Article L. 131-10: “L’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation doit au moins une fois par an, à partir du troisième mois suivant la délivrance de l’autorisation prévue au premier alinéa de l’article L. 131-5, faire vérifier, d’une part, que l’instruction dispensée au même domicile l’est pour les enfants d’une seule famille et, d’autre part, que l’enseignement assuré est conforme au droit de l’enfant à l’instruction tel que défini à l’article L. 131-1-1.” At least once a year, starting from the third month after authorisation, inspectors verify two things: that only the children of one family are taught at the address, collective or neighbourhood teaching under one roof is prohibited, and that teaching meets the child’s right to instruction by tracking progressive acquisition of the socle commun, the common foundation of knowledge, skills and culture, against the targets for each school cycle, adapted to the child’s age and any disability. The inspection is in principle held at the home where the child is taught, parents are told in advance of its purpose and methods, and the results are formally notified to them. For a British family teaching bilingually, this is the moment the French-mostly undertaking is tested in practice: an inspector who finds the child progressing in English but stagnating in French has grounds for an adverse finding, however impressive the English work may be.

An adverse finding is not immediately fatal; the statute builds in a second chance with a warning attached. while Article L. 131-10 continues: “Lorsque ces résultats sont jugés insuffisants, les personnes responsables de l’enfant sont informées du délai au terme duquel un second contrôle est prévu et des insuffisances de l’enseignement dispensé auxquelles il convient de remédier.” Parents are told the deadline for a second inspection and the shortcomings to remedy. But the same sentence continues with the warning, and parents are also told of the criminal penalties they may face at the end of the procedure. If the second inspection is also judged insufficient, Article L. 131-10 provides that “l’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation met en demeure les personnes responsables de l’enfant de l’inscrire, dans les quinze jours suivant la notification de cette mise en demeure, dans un établissement d’enseignement scolaire public ou privé”, with the school named to the mayor, and the child must then remain in school at least until the end of the school year following the year of the formal notice. Refusing inspection outright is treated just as seriously: parents who refuse the annual check without lawful reason are warned that a second unjustified refusal entitles the authority to issue the same fifteen-day enrolment notice, again with criminal penalties in the background. Cooperation is therefore never optional, and a British family’s best protection at every inspection is a dated, French-language record of work mapped to the socle commun, exactly as the authorised project promised.

B. How do you challenge a refusal, and what are the penalties for teaching without permission?

A refusal from the Dasen must be challenged fast, through a compulsory first step that many British parents have never encountered. The statute itself, in Article L. 131-5, states that “La décision de refus d’autorisation fait l’objet d’un recours administratif préalable auprès d’une commission présidée par le recteur d’académie, dans des conditions fixées par décret.” This recours administratif préalable obligatoire, the compulsory prior administrative appeal universally called the RAPO, goes to a commission chaired by the recteur d’académie, the regional education chief. The official service-public.fr page gives the timetable: the challenge must be filed within fifteen days of notification of the refusal, the commission meets within one month at most of receiving the appeal, and it notifies its decision within five working days. Fifteen days to appeal, one month for the hearing, five working days for notification: a parent who waits, who writes in English to the wrong office, or who treats the refusal as negotiable by telephone will miss the window and be left teaching unlawfully while the file goes stale. The RAPO letter should be sent by a provable method, in French, identifying the refusal, restating the statutory ground relied on, attaching the missing or reinforced evidence, and expressly requesting referral to the commission. If the commission confirms the refusal, the official page points the parent to the administrative courts, which means an application to the tribunal administratif, the administrative court, within the standard two-month period: Article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice provides that “La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée.” Where the start of term is imminent and the child would otherwise have to be enrolled pending judgment, the emergency route exists alongside the main claim: Article L. 521-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice allows the interim relief judge to suspend a refusal where urgency is shown and a ground raised creates serious doubt about legality, since “le juge des référés, saisi d’une demande en ce sens, peut ordonner la suspension de l’exécution de cette décision, ou de certains de ses effets, lorsque l’urgence le justifie et qu’il est fait état d’un moyen propre à créer, en l’état de l’instruction, un doute sérieux quant à la légalité de la décision.” A suspension does not decide the case, but it can hold the position while the court examines the merits, which is precisely what a family facing September needs.

Teaching without the authorisation, by contrast, leads to a formal notice and then to the criminal court. Article L. 131-5-1 of the Education Code provides that “Lorsqu’elle constate qu’un enfant reçoit l’instruction dans la famille sans l’autorisation mentionnée à l’article L. 131-5, l’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation met en demeure les personnes responsables de l’enfant de l’inscrire, dans un délai de quinze jours à compter de la notification de la mise en demeure, dans un établissement d’enseignement scolaire public ou privé”, and an authorisation obtained by fraud is withdrawn immediately with the same fifteen-day notice. Ignoring that notice is the criminal offence: Article 227-17-1 of the Criminal Code punishes “Le fait, par les parents d’un enfant ou toute personne exerçant à son égard l’autorité parentale ou une autorité de fait de façon continue, de ne pas l’inscrire dans un établissement d’enseignement, sans excuse valable, en dépit d’une mise en demeure de l’autorité de l’Etat compétente en matière d’éducation” with “six mois d’emprisonnement et de 7 500 euros d’amende”, six months’ imprisonment and a 7,500 euro fine. The hinge of every prosecution is the phrase sans excuse valable, without valid excuse, and the Cour de cassation has now fixed its meaning for home-schooling cases.

The ruling is Court of Cassation, criminal chamber, 10 June 2026, appeal No. 25-87.438, published in the Bulletin, and its facts should give pause to any British family tempted to teach first and regularise later. Two parents of children born in 2014 and 2019 received a formal notice to enrol them on 10 March 2023, were acquitted at first instance in March 2025, and were convicted on the prosecution’s appeal by the Rennes court of appeal in October 2025, each receiving a 150 euro suspended fine. They argued that their long-standing home instruction, confirmed by positive inspections, was a valid excuse, and that punishing them disproportionately interfered with their right to choose their children’s education and their family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Cour de cassation rejected both arguments and dismissed the appeals. On the valid excuse point it held: “si les parents d’enfants d’âge scolaire peuvent se prévaloir de leur pratique antérieure de l’instruction en famille et du niveau scolaire de leurs enfants afin d’obtenir l’autorisation de leur donner ce mode d’instruction, en application de l’article L. 131-5 du code de l’éducation, ces circonstances ne peuvent, en revanche, ni les exonérer de leur obligation de les inscrire dans un établissement scolaire lorsqu’ils n’ont pas obtenu ladite autorisation, dans les conditions et selon les recours prévus par ce texte, ni constituer une excuse valable de ne l’avoir fait, au sens de l’article 227-17-1 du code pénal.” Prior practice and proven standards help you obtain the authorisation; they can neither replace it nor excuse its absence. The court added that the parents had refused to apply as a matter of civil disobedience, which removed any sympathy from the excuse analysis. On the human rights point, the court accepted there was an interference with Article 8 family life but held it lawful and necessary: “si l’incrimination constituait une ingérence de l’autorité publique dans le droit au respect de la vie privée et familiale, garanti par l’article 8 de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme, cette ingérence, prévue par la loi, est légitime et nécessaire à la protection du droit d’accès des enfants à l’éducation.” The modest suspended fines reflected the parents’ genuine care, including medical follow-up for a learning difficulty, but care mitigates the sentence, never the offence. For a British family, the practical moral is exact: file the application on the correct ground with a complete French-language file, use the RAPO and the courts if refused, and never treat good teaching as a substitute for permission.

Conclusion

Home-schooling in France after Brexit is a permission system, not a notification system, and British parents succeed in it by doing things in the French order: identify the one statutory ground that genuinely fits the child, assemble the complete file with a written French-language project mapped to the socle commun, apply to the Dasen between 1 March and 31 May, keep every receipt, treat silence after two months as consent, prepare for the mayor’s enquiry and the yearly inspection, and challenge any refusal within fifteen days through the rector’s commission before going to the administrative court. The Cour de cassation’s June 2026 ruling closes the only shortcut that ever looked tempting: neither years of devoted teaching nor positive inspections excuse the missing authorisation. A British family that respects that order teaches lawfully, inspects well, and keeps every appeal right intact; a family that inverts it teaches unlawfully from the first morning, however good the lessons may be.