Mayors in France give free books to future college students

The presents aim to teach them the value of knowledge before entering middle school

This year again, as per tradition, several French mayors decided to wish success to the future college students of their cities by offering them the most valuable of gifts – namely a book. Last week, the municipality of Cannes for example, announced that 668 local students will receive dictionaries from the Mayor David Lisnard.

Speaking well means succeeding in life

Every year since 2014 Mayor Lisnard meets the students of the CM2 level (end of the primary school education and last year before college) to offer them an encyclopaedic dictionary. With this initiative, the mayor wants to encourage every student to explore language, before entering sixth grade, an important stage of the learning cycle when primary schoolchildren enter middle school. In 2020 the gifts are a Hachette college dictionary and an English-French dictionary for each student.

The dictionary is like a magic screen as its value does not expire, it does not need to be recharged and your parents will not be angry at you because you watch it too much, Lisnard told the schoolchildren from Saint-Exupéry school whom he met in the morning of 23 June. The dictionary teaches you how to speak well and how to express yourself properly, which are two traits that are very important for succeeding in life, he continued.

Furthermore, as part of the extracurricular activities, the municipality of Cannes introduces each student from CP (preparatory course) to CM2 level (the fifth school year) to workshops in Greek and Latin etymology. This action aims to support the French language and to develop a feeling of citizenship among the young.

Cannes, of course, is not alone in this symbolic initiative – dozens of other municipalities have been doing similar things and continue to do so. The types of presents vary from novels, through dictionaries, to school kits, but all of them come to support the idea that those who can work well with words stand better chances in life.