The return to school is a few days after starting and some autonomous communities have already published their School calendar for the 2025-2026 course and in the schools are expanding template. The little ones return to the classrooms and their parents to the labor and family conciliation that in many cases causes them to pick up their children. In Toulouse (France) they have found the perfect solution and, as has been demonstrated, effective. Fathers and mothers who come late to pick up their children will have to pay a fine of 30 euros.
The measure was implemented a year ago, and as the French media publishes RTLit has been shown that it works since the number of late arrivals has been “drastically”. The City Council of this town is the one that controls the school schedules, from the entrance and exit of the students and also that of the classes that are taught outside the school schedule. In this sense, before starting to sanction families, about 8,000 annual arrivals were recorded.
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Sometimes, when parents were delayed, extracurricular activities monitors had to stay with children longer. And yes, the mayor of the municipality Jean Luc Moundenc understands that “problems” can arise but “some were abusing because that time in school was free.”
After six months of application of the standard, the record of late arrivals to pick up children to educational centers has been reduced considerably, adding only 60 delays in the first four months.
Parent associations denounce that the fine is “discriminatory”
The associations of fathers and mothers of the French schools, which in Spain is known as the AMPA (Association of Mothers and Fathers of Students) has issued a statement in which they criticize this fine since, according to them, it is “unfair and discriminatory” because it will directly affect families with more economic problems.
“There are families who have no resources to pay someone to go to school to pick up their children.” The mayor has indicated several times that this measure is not made with a collection eagerness, but that the idea is to redirect “inappropriate behavior of families.”
The City Council clarifies that these sanctions will not be applied to families that are delayed five or ten minutes, but to those that take longer since delays between an hour and an hour and a half have been counted.
More than 40,000 fines for school absenteeism
There are other locations that have ‘copied’ the Toulouse model such as Bordeaux, Lille or Marseille. In these cases, the fine is progressive, and starts being 12 euros to move to 24 euros from the third.
In England there are also sanctions, although in this case it is due to unjustified absences, as explained in Antena3. In total, about 400,000 fines have been collected for school absenteeism that are imposed when the student is missing for 5 days.