Promoting youth mobility: this was the objective of a series of measures announced in June 2023 by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. Among them, the lowering to 17 of the minimum age for a driving license, which came into force on 1er January 2024, but also the extension to students in vocational high schools of the financial aid of 500 euros that apprentices currently receive to obtain this permit.
If the official government website for students suggests that the measure has entered into force, it has not, and no date of application is planned for the moment because it has not been translated into any text, confirmed to the World the services of the Ministry of National Education and Youth.
On another government site, the “community of inclusion” (a forum), many families have expressed their expectations in this area. “Following Elisabeth Borne’s announcement (June 2023) concerning the 500 euro driving license aid for vocational high school students (non-apprentices) from the age of 17, what is the situation? Because my 19-year-old son has just obtained a vocational baccalaureate in boilermaking and he could really use a helping hand to finance his driving license! And it’s almost September 2024…”wrote one parent on August 7, adding that he “It would be high time to give us the guidelines to follow”.
Other aids
“My young man who is entering his final year of vocational baccalaureate in September started driving in June, counting on this promise of aid of 500 euros for young people in vocational baccalaureate, but nothing; in July either, nothing at all is granted to them”regretted another on July 27.
“Since this announcement, neither families nor establishments have been able to obtain details on the implementation of this measure”also deplored MP Anne-Laure Blin (The Republicans) in a question addressed to the Ministry of National Education and Youth and published in Official Journal March 19.
The ministry, to whom she asked to “to kindly clarify the procedure to follow to allow vocational high school students to benefit from it”had then suggested, in his response published in mid-May, that the measure, “under study”could possibly come into force on the occasion of this return to school. This will ultimately not be the case.
The ministry, however, listed other aids, such as “the zero-rate loan open to all young people aged 15 to 25” (also called “one euro per day permit”), mobilization, now possiblethe personal training supplement (CPF) and the “reward for periods of training in a professional environment which, without being specifically intended for preparing for the driving license, can constitute an important lever for its financing”.