This is the best summary I could come up with:

But uniforms have made a return to one town as part of a government pilot scheme to establish if they can reduce inequality – and improve behaviour.

In the Brittany village of Plouisy, the mayor from Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party signed up for the experiment but pulled out after complaints from angry parents.

Uniforms were first introduced in secondary schools in France by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, who wanted to instil more military-style discipline in the education system, and were modelled on army outfits.

They have not been compulsory in state schools in mainland France since 1968, seen as a watershed moment in French society because of the civil unrest that dominated the spring.

In 2016 the rightwing presidential candidate François Fillon and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen included the imposition of school uniforms in their election manifesto.

Parents are divided about the utility of introducing uniforms: some have suggested it will lead to more apparent equality while others have pointed out that inequalities can be still expressed in such items as shoes, scarves, mobile phones and backpacks.

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