Series: Child Protection

Thematic Cluster: RIDS – International Relations, Defence and Security

Authors: Marine GOUAISBAUT, Maëlle AUBERT, Ismail BOUGHIOUL

Published Date: January 18, 2026

1. Purpose of the series

This series of memos aims to offer a clear, structured and accessible knowledge base on child protection in France.

It is aimed at:

• professionals  : social workers, health personnel, magistrates, specialized educators, family assistants, ASE executives;
• public decision-makers : elected officials, central and decentralised administrations, departmental councils, national agencies and bodies;
• as well as anyone (students, journalists, researchers, committed citizens) wishing to understand  how  the French child protection system is organized, governed and evaluated.

Each memo:

• focuses on a specific theme (a law, a device, an institution, a report, a cross-cutting issue);
• can be read independently of others;
• but is part of a coherent whole, conceived as a path of progressive understanding.

• Why this series?

Child protection is at the crossroads of:

•  law (civil, criminal, administrative, user rights);
• social and health policies ;
•  decentralization, with a central role for the departments;
• and of realities on the ground that are often complex, sometimes invisible, and often little known to the general public.

For several decades, texts and measures have multiplied:

• major reform laws (2002, 2007, 2016, 2022, and recent adjustments);
• creation of national and local bodies (ONPE, CNPE, France Enfance Protégée, departmental observatories, CRIP, etc.);
• experimental or targeted measures  (Pegasus, Protected Health, CIVISE, crisis centres, mental health structures for minors);
• successive reports, evaluations, plans and « compacts » on child protection.

The result is a landscape:

• rich in tools, texts and good intentions;
• but often fragmented, difficult to read, unevenly applied from one territory to another.

The objective of the series is therefore to:

• to make this accumulation of reforms legible;
• situate each law, device or body in a chronology and in an institutional architecture ;
• show continuities and breaks (e.g. before/after 2007, before/after 2016, before/after the Taquet law);
• Highlight recurring issues :
• territorial inequalities linked to decentralisation,
• articulation between ASE and the health system,
• national governance and the role of the guarantor state,
• mental health of protected children and young people,
• places families, children themselves and professionals in the field.

• Organizing the Memo Series

The series is constructed as a  coherent thematic cycle. For information purposes, it will include:

1. Timeline of Child Protection (1793–2025): Key Dates, Laws, and Historical Turning Points.
2. From Declarations to the Rights of the Child: International Construction: Declaration of 1924, Declaration of 1959, International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) and ratification by France (1990).
3. From Public Assistance to Child Welfare (ASE): Institutional transformation, creation of the ASE, role of the DDASS, articulation with PMI and school health.
4. The turning point of the 1970s and 1980s
5. 1970 Law on Parental Authority;
6. reform reports (including Dupont-Fauville);
7. laws of 1984 and 1986: family rights, limitation of abusive placements, increase in educational and psycho-social support.
8. Decentralization and specialization
9. Decentralization laws, transfer of competence to the departments;
10. creation of CRIPs, departmental observatories, evolution of reporting practices.

6. Law 2002-2: users’ rights and medico-social framework: Strengthening of people’s rights, contract with users, inclusion in the Code of Social Action and Families (CASF).
7. The law of 5 March 2007: structural reform of child protection: prevention, early detection, regular check-ups, CRIP, diversification of care methods.
8. The law of 14 March 2016: project for the child and stability of pathways: CNPE, PPE, referring doctor, ad hoc administrator, reform of simple adoption, stability of the pathway.
9. The Taquet law (2022): governance and rights of young adults: End of hotels, siblings, sponsorship/mentoring, 18–21 years old, right to return, person of trust, background checks, GIP France Enfance Protégée, strengthening of the PMI, etc.
10. Current national governance: CNPE, High Commission, GIP France Enfance Protégée, role of the State and departmental councils.
11. Protected Health and Pegasus Systems: Coordinated health pathway, entry assessments, limits and lessons.
12. Mental health, sexual violence and CIVISE: Crisis centres, specialised systems, CIVISE recommendations, ASE/health articulation.
13. Major national reports (ONPE, CIVISE, Protected Health/Pegasus assessments): What the reports say about the strengths, weaknesses and inequalities of the system.
14. Family assistants and social professions: Role, status, recognition: the invisible backbone of child protection.
15. Decentralization and territorial inequalities: What the diversity of departmental practices produces in terms of equal (or not) rights for children.

This list may be supplemented, reordered or grouped according to the progress of internal research and, where appropriate, legislative or regulatory news.

The  purpose of this Memo 0 is to give the reader the general map before entering the different territories of child protection.

The following memos will:

• to explore, one by one, the texts, mechanisms and reports that have shaped – and continue to shape – child protection policy in France;
• identify structural tensions (between decentralisation and equal rights, between declared ambitions and real resources, between prevention and emergency management);
• to prepare a broader work: to think of fairer, more legible, more protective public policies for children and young people entrusted to child protection.

The series is thus in line with the central ambition of La Ligne Fine – Institut:  to enlighten the public debate through demanding, structured analyses, and directly useful for action.