Security and justice, David Lisnard
Juvenile justice: Lower the age of criminal majority to 16 and reverse the minority excuse from 13
Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.
The lever. Trial of juvenile offenders: age of criminal responsibility, mitigation on grounds of minority (excuse de minorité), educational measures. Direction rule: ↑ harsher criminal response.
« abaisser la majorité pénale à 16 ans, inverser le principe de l’excuse de minorité dès 13 ans »1Translation by the editorslower the age of criminal majority to 16, reverse the principle of the minority excuse from 13
Encoding
No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The programme does not cost this measure.
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
not costed
Age of criminal majority at 16 and reversed excuse of minority: rules of law; their cost would go through additional detention places, which the text does not give.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Code de la justice pénale des mineurs (juvenile criminal justice code, 2021). Closed educational centres: cost of €578 per place per day in 2026 (public sector).
Horizon. full year 2032, €bn/year
Limits. Calculation: 100 × €578 × 365 days = €21m. Low value based on a UEHC (residential educational unit), high value with an occupancy rate and investment. Most of the lever (age of criminal majority, immediate trial, mitigation of responsibility) is not budgetary: cannot be costed apart from placement facilities.
- AN, rapport spécial PLF 2026, Justice, 2025-10: « En 2026, le coût d'une place par jour et par type de structure du secteur public serait le suivant : 578 euros en centre éducatif fermé (CEF), 510 euros en centre éducatif renforcé (CER) et 467 euros dans une unité éducative d'hébergement collectif (UEHC). »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Programme Nouvelle Énergie, Sécurité. Read the programme page.
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