Changing your child’s school in France without the other parent’s consent: what the law allows

Yes: when separated parents share parental authority (autorité parentale), enrolling a child in a French state school or removing them from it is a usual act (acte usuel), which one parent can do alone. Article 372-2 of the Civil Code says that, towards third parties acting in good faith, each parent is deemed to act with the other’s agreement when doing a usual act alone. The school and the town hall (mairie) therefore do not need both signatures.

This presumption has two limits. In 2018 the Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative court, held that the administration must assess, from the circumstances it knows, whether a request to change school really is a usual act. And once the other parent has made their disagreement known, the school is no longer acting in good faith: according to Service-public, the official French government information site, it must respect the objecting parent’s wishes, and the dispute goes to the family judge (juge aux affaires familiales).

No official French text says that a private school, a religious school or a boarding school requires both parents’ agreement, and none says the opposite. The rule remains article 372-2: the school may presume the other parent agrees to a usual act if it acts in good faith. But the Conseil d’État asks for each change to be assessed on its circumstances, and a choice that involves fees, a religious orientation or boarding moves away from a simple enrolment in the local state school.

The safest course is to get the other parent’s written agreement before signing the school contract. If the other parent objects and the school knows it, the school must respect that objection, and only the family judge can settle the matter, in the child’s interest.

The French family judge chooses the school according to the child’s interest, using the criteria in article 373-2-11 of the Civil Code: how the parents organised things until now and any earlier agreements, the feelings expressed by a child capable of discernment, each parent’s ability to respect the other’s rights, and where relevant an expert report or a social inquiry.

In 2005 the Cour de cassation, France’s highest civil court, quashed a decision that set the children’s school for the father’s sake without looking for the children’s interest. In practice, give the judge facts that can be checked: journeys, where the child lives, continuity of schooling, special needs, costs. According to the French Ministry of Justice (Chiffres clés 2026), courts received 197 289 applications about children after their parents separated in 2025.