No kids" spaces: discrimination that runs counter to social cohesion?
Since the 2000s, public authorities have been alerted to the development of "no kids" holidays, tourist attractions and restaurants. What does this phenomenon of generational segregation say about our ability to form a society? How is the place of children in public spaces changing?
Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier
Over the past ten years or so, " no kids " initiatives have been flourishing: restaurants, hotels, airplanes and festive events have all banned the presence of children. Still marginal in France, the phenomenon is growing rapidly.
On May 27, 2025, Sarah El Haïry, High Commissioner for Children, met with the tourism federations to express her disapproval of this trend towards exclusion. On this occasion, she announced the possibility of a children's charter that would make such segregation illegal. This political awareness is not new. In April 2024, Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol tabled a bill to "recognize minority as a factor of discrimination in order to promote a society open to children".
How can we define this phenomenon of generational segregation? How does the question of the place accorded to children in the public sphere reveal our collective capacity to form a society?
An "adult only" commercial
The " adult-only " trend originated in the international beach tourism sector and developed in Mediterranean Europe in the 2000s. By 2023, nearly 1,600 hotels worldwide would have been listed as " adult only ", twice as many as in 2016. These establishments aim to exclude children from certain areas, or even from the entire offer, as part of marketing strategies targeting adults without children or whose children have grown up.
The concept now extends beyond the hotel sector to include restaurants, cruises, vacation homes and certain leisure parks. The argument is always the same: a growing demand from adults in search of serenity, who deplore the crying, noise or behavior of their children.
It is the question of the fundamental rights of children in society that is at stake here. As early as 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations General Assembly affirmed the need to protect the very young. This principle was reinforced by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, which specifies, notably in Article 2, the right of every child to non-discrimination and, in Article 31, the right to participate fully in cultural life, the arts, recreation and leisure.
In this view, any systematic exclusion of children from certain public places runs counter to these international commitments and calls into question their full integration into society. In this respect, researcher Zoe Moody insists on the importance of considering children not only as beings to be protected, but also as social actors in their own right, entitled to participate in social life and to be heard in the public arena.
The work of child psychiatrist Laelia Benoit introduces the concept of " infantism ", a form of discrimination against children that excludes them from certain spaces or refuses to consider them as full legal subjects.
"Ugly and awkward": towards ordinary discrimination
The status of children in our society remains marked by a form of ordinary discrimination, often trivialized and little questioned.
In particular, this discrimination is reflected in the persistence and legitimization of certain so-called "ordinary" forms of educational violence, despite the entry into force of the law of July 10, 2019, which explicitly prohibits all forms of educational violence. These practices, sometimes tolerated in the name of tradition or parental authority, contribute to maintaining the idea that children should be controlled and corrected, rather than listened to and respected.
At the same time, positive education is regularly criticized, often by the media rather than the scientific community, as lax or ineffective. This mistrust of educational methods that respect children's rights reveals a persistent difficulty in recognizing children as subjects of rights in their own right.
Children are only fully accepted if they remain discreet, docile and almost invisible, which profoundly limits their freedom of expression and existence in the public space, "a territory of freedom that is shrinking for children ". On February 19, 2024, the daily Libération ran a front-page headline entitled " Moi, mioche et gênant " ( "Me, a brat and a nuisance "), analyzing the increasingly assertive exclusion of children since the 1990s. Public space has gradually been adapted to the needs of the car, relegating them to safe, marked-out areas such as playgrounds and school playgrounds, and limiting their independence of movement in a fragmented city.
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For several decades, it has been clear that the presence of children in public spaces has been declining. Clément Rivière's research has shown that children are turning inwards. A withdrawal that also maintains gender inequality in the face of an outside world perceived as dangerous.
In October 2024, the Haut conseil de la famille, de l'enfance et de l'âge (HCFEA) asked the question: what place do children have in public spaces and nature? With an alarming finding: over 37% of 11-17 year-olds have a very sedentary lifestyle. Taking an interest in children's place in the city means tackling a real public health issue, but also one of citizenship and autonomy.
At a child's level
Another movement, that of " cities at children's level ", is gaining ground in many local authorities. This approach aims to rethink the city, taking into account the needs, rights and participation of children, to enable them to reclaim urban space and fully exercise their citizenship.
The concept has been developing in France and Europe since the 2010s, drawing inspiration from pioneering approaches pioneered in Italy in the 1990s by sociologist Francesco Tonucci in Fano, on the Adriatic coast. This trend is not a direct reaction to the " no kids " phenomenon, but a broader response to a growing awareness of the negative effects of urbanization, the dominance of the car and the diminishing autonomy of children in the city.
In France, the first "à hauteur d'enfant" charters in the Lille metropolitan area and Montpellier are based on the idea that children, like all other members of a territory, have the right to reappropriate public spaces, and that their participation should contribute to rethinking the city.
The subject is attracting growing interest in local public policy. Many local authorities, such as Tours, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseille and Paris, are involved in participatory approaches that involve children in urban planning.
Recognition of children's place in the city is reflected in a variety of developments, such as the creation of pedestrianized or calmed school streets around schools to make daily commutes safer, the development of play trails, accessible green spaces and adventure playgrounds. It also involves adapting street furniture (benches at child height, fountains, adapted signage) and redesigning public squares to encourage intergenerational encounters and free play.
Between the rise of " no kids" spaces and the development of inclusive urban policies for children, our society is oscillating between two visions of living together. The first, focused on exclusion and individualized comfort, reveals unease about the diversity of uses of public space. The second, inclusive and participatory, suggests that thinking for and with children is the best way to live together.
The challenge is twofold: to recognize the child as a social and political subject, and to question the logic of exclusion that weakens intergenerational ties. For a society that tolerates its children poorly may well be a society that finds it hard to project itself into the future.
Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.