What happened. President Emmanuel Macron announced the convention on 2 May 2025 and asked the Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE) to organise it; the Prime Minister set the question: how to structure the different times of children's daily lives so that they better support learning, development and health. Members met in seven weekend sessions from June to November 2025, heard more than 80 experts and practitioners, and drew on some thirty regional workshops and a panel of 20 children aged 12-17. On 23 November they adopted their final report (CESE). CESE pages give the membership as 130, 133 or 140 at different stages; 133 is the figure given for the final vote.
What they proposed. The report describes children's lives as fragmented into school, after-school, extracurricular and free time organised around adults' constraints. Its 20 proposals include lighter school days with a 9 a.m. start for adolescents, a school week spread over five days, a revised school calendar, a ban on social networks before age 15, and a 'genuine right to parenthood' for working parents. Principles adopted alongside include protecting children from violence, prioritising physical and mental health, reducing social and territorial inequalities, revaluing education professions and smaller classes.
Context. This is the third national citizens' convention hosted by the CESE, after the Citizens' Convention for Climate (2019-2020) and the convention on the end of life (2022-2023, 184 members). A 2021 reform made the CESE the institutional home of citizen participation in France. The climate convention left a mixed legacy: the government's own tracker and independent assessments disagree on how many proposals were adopted as intended.
Why it matters. France is turning randomly selected conventions into a repeatable procedure run by a constitutional body, rather than one-off political gestures. The question is still set by the executive, and the outputs remain advisory, so the key test is uptake.
What to watch. The government's formal response; whether proposals on school rhythms and social media reach legislation or regulation; and whether the CESE's own-initiative conventions, such as the one on public finances launched in 2026, receive the same attention as those commissioned by the President.