Can you make your child miss a few days of school to go on vacation (and pay less)?

Going on vacation at the same time as everyone else is always more expensive. Train and plane tickets are on the rise, trips are full and if you take the road, you expose yourself to the risk of traffic jams. More and more parents are therefore opting to leave a few days before the end of the school year, to save on transport or to travel more comfortably by car. Sometimes, it is also an opportunity to take advantage of additional days with family and to time vacations with the respective vacation dates imposed by the company. But can we really squeeze in a few days of school?

You should know that French law is formal. It is prohibited to make a child aged 3 to 16 miss school outside of “legitimate reasons” set out in the Education Code. Although admissible, each of these reasons must nevertheless be the subject of supporting documentation. A child can absolutely be absent in the event of “temporary absence of responsible persons when the children follow them”, if the schoolchild is ill or in the event of a communicable or contagious illness of a member of the family. There may also be obstacles (an accident during transport for example). Finally, special cases (marriage or funeral) also come before school days. In principle, apart from these exceptional cases, a child cannot miss school without valid reason and a repeated absence represents an infraction of the law which can lead to criminal sanctions accompanied by fines, ranging from 135 to 30 000 euros in the most extreme cases, and up to two years in prison.

According to the law, each absence must be reported to the school management, who reserves the right to judge its credibility. “In the event of a foreseeable absence, those responsible for the child inform the school director or head of the establishment in advance and specify the reason. If there is serious doubt about the legitimacy of the reason, the school director or head of the establishment invites the people responsible for the child to submit a request for authorization of absence which he transmits to the director academic of the national education services acting on delegation of the rector of the academy“, indicates article R131-5 of the Education Code.

So, can we still make arrangements with the school when the absence is occasional? Even if the law is indeed not on your side, there is a certain tolerance. If you really have no other choice regarding the date of your vacation, the first thing to do is to make an appointment with your child’s teacher or homeroom teacher as well as the school principal . If the situation is not recurring and you take the time to explain your reasons, there is a good chance that you will find an attentive ear. Then write a letter to the head of the establishment in which you detail your departure dates, specifying that you undertake to make him catch up. In the vast majority of cases, everything goes very well and formal notices and convictions are rare when the absence is exceptional.