France child welfare: Experts warn of excessive placements

Legal experts and lawmakers are raising alarms regarding the scale of child placements within France’s Aide sociale à l’enfance (ASE). According to 2024 data from the Drees, 392,600 minors and young adults receive ASE support, with approximately 225,000 placed outside their family homes.

Family law attorney Franz Achache and Socialist deputy Isabelle Santiago suggest that roughly half of these placements—approximately 100,000 cases—could be avoided. Achache argues that the judicial criterion of ‘danger’ has become too subjective, leading to placements based on non-objective factors such as a parent's psychological fragility or intense emotional bonds rather than concrete evidence of maltreatment.

While a commission of inquiry proposed measures in April 2025 to address these systemic issues, these recommendations were reportedly omitted from the child protection bill recently adopted in its first reading by the National Assembly.