Macron is right – let's revive the school French exchange to secure a future together
The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, addressed members of both Houses during an official state visit to UK Parliament, on Tuesday 8 July. © House of Lords 2025 / photography by Roger Harris
3 min read
As a former French teacher, I think I must have been the first MP to reply to Black Rod’s invitation to President Macron’s visit to address parliamentarians in Westminster. And I got to the Royal Gallery on Tuesday early – I was in row five!
I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, I was delighted – especially when he spoke about fixing the relationship between our young people. He shares my fear that they may end up strangers unless pre-Brexit opportunities for connection are revived. His call for a new French exchange programme almost had me up and cheering. I completely agree. Our children should be given the same exchange opportunities as we had.
And the need is urgent. As the King and President Macron both said, we need a strong relationship to counter a multitude of global threats. Nurturing engagement between our children is key to that.
But the scars from Brexit run deep on both sides of the Channel.
Since the Brexit vote in 2016, around 10,000 fewer pupils in the UK are taking French at GCSE. And 50 per cent of schools say they have cut exchanges and visits, according to British Council data from 2023. The schools that have kept up trips to France usually do a cultural visit instead of the school swaps and homestays of pre-Brexit times. Classrooms used to bring native speakers in to be language assistants, but the British Council says added costs like the Immigration Health Surcharge have made that more difficult.
This means the British kids that are learning French at school may never interact with a native speaker or visit France.
Our young people have lost a vital link to our closest neighbour
The barriers lie with post-Brexit travel paperwork, onerous safeguarding admin, limited official guidance and a lack of money. This means many exchanges and school partnerships have stopped.
This is a huge problem. Our young people have lost a vital link to our closest neighbour – a growing number of French children now go to EU member Ireland for exchanges because there is less admin. And our pupils have lost out on an important lesson in resilience. The sort that only comes from being miles from home and thrown in at the deep end to speak French around a dinner table.
As a gawky 17-year-old, travelling from Llanelli to our twinned town of Agen in southern France for an exchange was one of the scariest things I had ever done. But I loved it. I vividly remember sitting at my host’s dining table reciting swear words from the French dictionary, to hoots of laughter! The whole trip cemented my love of France and my passion for its language and people, and it set me on a path to being a French teacher.
So, how can we revive the school French exchange?
A start would be removing some of the obstacles – paperwork, safeguarding issues, and funding. This has begun to happen: a new fast-track border process for school groups travelling between France and Dover has just started thanks to cross-agency and UK-France collaboration. And some of the contradictory safeguarding guidelines have been streamlined. But it would help if group passports made a comeback and there was more support, official guidance and funding for schools wanting to do an exchange.
If we are going to enter a new era of togetherness – hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder – as President Macron put it, we need as many cross-Channel relationships as possible. Our futures depend on it.
Tonia Antoniazzi is the Labour MP for Gower and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Foreign Languages
