Not part of our culture' Debate grows in France over child-free holidays

Child-free resorts and adult-only hotels are discriminatory, risk creating a society of intolerance and should be banned, a French senator has said amid a debate in France on whether it is inhumane to exclude children from holidays.

- Angelique Chrisafis

"We can't organise society by separating children off from ourselves in the same way some establishments don't take dogs," said Socialist senator and former French families minister Laurence Rossignol. "Children aren't troublesome pets."

Last month, the government's high commissioner for childhood, Sarah El Haïry - who has warned that adult-only holiday resorts were "not part of [French] culture, not our philosophy and not what we want to see as the norm in our country" - launched a Family Choice award as part of a "fight against the new no-kids trend".

El Haïry called for parents to vote for their favourite child-friendly locations as a way to "put children back at the heart of public space".

"No way can we let it take hold in our society that children aren't welcome on a restaurant terrace," she told Parents magazine.

Rossignol called for a parliamentary debate on her proposal to make it illegal to ban children from venues in France. She said child-free spaces amount to "organising society around people's intolerance of others" and legitimise intolerance.