The Minister of National Education “is very keen on it”. The Universal National Service could become widespread, in any case that is what Gabriel Attal wants, who speaks officially for the first time on the SNU. “The deployment of the national universal service” is “a project that I am very keen on,” he said in the Senate during questions to the government. “I launched it in 2018 as Secretary of State. Prisca Thévenot [Secrétaire d’État chargée de la Jeunesse]today continues it,” he underlined.
The minister then said he wanted to “deeply make it a key moment in the training of citizens in France, which will perhaps involve making it evolve”. “But in any case, I deeply believe that we must move towards the generalization of the Universal National Service so that the school can fully assume this mission and we all share, I believe, the objective of forming a community of republicans and enlightened and united citizens,” he concluded.
On a voluntary basis
A campaign promise from Emmanuel Macron, the SNU was launched in 2019. It includes a “cohesion stay” and a “general interest mission”. For the moment it only concerns young volunteers, and its generalization faces strong resistance.
Its detractors rely on the opinion delivered at the beginning of 2018 by the Youth Policy Orientation Council (COJ) which recommended that it not be compulsory, and on a senatorial report from March 2023 recommending “suspending” its generalization, due to the vagueness and cost of the device. In June, the government announced that the SNU would be integrated into school time from March 2024, with a 12-day internship for second-year students who would volunteer.