France

Compulsory Education Age

3 to 16 (from 16 to 18 training is mandatory until the age of majority)

Estimated Number of Homeschoolers

2000–3000 private homeschoolers and 10,000–20,000 homeschoolers enrolled in correspondence schools.

Legal Status

Homeschooling is legal but heavily restricted under a new law proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron. Almost 100 members of the French National Assembly and Senate petitioned the law requesting a review and to strike down Article 49 of the new law, which imposed unreasonable restrictions on French homeschool families. You can read the translation of Decision n 2021-823 DC here. 

The new law does not change the legal status of homeschooling, but does restrict it to four specific exceptions relating to health, family traveling status, medical, or other specific reasons related to the needs of a child. The most significant change is that, instead of simply filing a declaration and homeschooling under the conditions of submitting to annual inspections and home visits by the government, the new law requires families who wish to homeschool to obtain permission under one of the four conditions of the law.

Currently, homeschool families in France are "grandfathered" under the previous law for the 2021–2024 school years which is the Education Code, Article L. 131, a supplemental decree and a circular.