In France, for example, a criminal appeal takes one year, three times the European median. A statistical study by the Ministry of Justice puts the average delay at seven or eight months between 2004 and 2016, then at eleven months in 2024.
The newsroom's True or False feature checked several of their statements on teachers' pay, a justice system portrayed as lenient, early childhood, and the consequences of privatizations.
The candidates interviewed took positions on education, health, justice, housing, and culture. Several of them were also led to discuss the resources of the justice system and the decisions it hands down.
This comparison shows that the statutory salaries of French teachers are lower than those of Portuguese and Slovenian teachers from ten years of experience onward, and through the end of their careers. France ranks below the OECD average.
The loss of purchasing power relative to the minimum wage is felt mainly at the start of a career, particularly among primary-school teachers, who now earn 1.5 times the minimum wage.
At the end of a career, the gap is just as clear: teachers could earn nearly four times the minimum wage in 1990; by 2020 they had fallen to three times, or even below that threshold.
The figures put forward by Gabriel Attal, the Renaissance candidate, are accurate but partial. They describe the pay trend for a certified middle- or high-school teacher after fifteen years of service.
According to a general Senate report on the 2023 finance bill, this teacher earned the equivalent of 2.6 times the minimum wage in 1990, compared with 1.9 times in 2020. Today, he or she earns the equivalent of 1.9 times the minimum wage.
Édouard Philippe, the Horizons candidate, focused instead on the length of proceedings. According to a report by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, it takes longer in France than the European median to obtain justice, in civil, administrative, and criminal cases alike.
French courts are also less well staffed with judges. Each prosecutor handles nearly 2,030 cases a year, compared with an average of 430 in Europe, again according to Cepej comparisons.
The share of prison sentences has not increased: it has stagnated, or even fallen very slightly, from 25% to 24% between 2017 and 2024. By contrast, these sentences are more often carried out as soon as the trial ends: 57% in 2024, compared with 33% in 2020.
On early childhood, one candidate said:"One parent in two is left without a solution; 160,000 people have no solutions and cannot return to work."The second figure is supported; the first is not.
About 160,000 people, mainly women, do not return to work for lack of a place in a daycare center or with a childminder. According to franceinfo, the claim"one parent in two"is false: the proportion is one parent in five.