Adult-only hotels that ban children ‘like dogs’ could be made illegal in France
Children cannonballing into pools, running through the lobby and spaghetti on the floor in the restaurant.
This is the kind of youthful chaos that a growing number of adults are keen to avoid while going on holiday – Metro readers included.
Yet French politicians are looking at ending grown-up escapes as venues treat children as ‘troublesome pests’.
Should adult-only hotels be banned, or should adults be able to book time away from youngsters? Email us at: webnews@metro.co.uk
Former French families minister Laurence Rossignol was quoted by The Guardian as saying: ‘We can’t organise society by separating children off from ourselves in the same way some establishments don’t take dogs.’
The Oise senator has proposed a bill to make it illegal to ban children from venues by considering it age discrimination under the Penal Code.
These child-free spaces, according to Rossignol, amount to ‘organising society around people’s intolerance of others’.
They ‘allow people to say, “I don’t like children and I don’t want to see them”,’ she said. ‘And that is not acceptable, because to not like children is to not like humanity itself.’
Our readers aren’t so sure about that. Gid Eon told us: ‘Surely that’s also a form of discrimination. Discriminatory for those who don’t want to be around a load of screaming kids?’
Bliss Natasha added: ‘People who choose not to have children should be able to go on holiday and have some peace.’
Arwen Carol, a part-time supply teacher, said not wanting to be around children isn’t discrimination, it’s wanting to relax.
‘There’s plenty of spaces that cater really well for families with kids and there’s space for both without turning it into an issue,’ she commented.
It’s not just Rossingnol mourning the loss of the hotels with kids’ clubs, teen zones with pool tables and face-painting sessions.
Sarah El Haïry, the French government’s high commissioner for childhood, believes excluding families from accommodation is ‘real violence’.
Haïry has launched a ‘Family Choice’ campaign for parents to recommend businesses that offer child-friendly prices, events and facilities.
‘A child shouts, laughs and moves… we are institutionalising the idea that silence is a luxury and the absence of children is a luxury,’ she told the broadcaster RTL.
Adult-only holidays are nothing new, being popular since the 1970s in hotspots like Greece, Thailand and the US.
Adverts for these child-free hotels, cruises and camps often feature smiling adults clinking glasses of wine in complete and utter silence.
An Expedia survey in 2023 found that guests at these resorts were 63% more likely to rate their time as ‘exceptional’ compared to those at mixed-age resorts.
Some Metro readers, including parents and guardians of children, said they’d even be willing to pay extra for a child-free hotel, flight or cinema.
They described how it’s not so much children not being on the premises that they’re willing to pay for, but it’s not being around childish behaviour.
Shannon Baird said: ‘As a mother of two, no, I don’t think they should be banned. Not everyone wants to deal with our kids screaming and running around playing all the time.’
Alex Doody wrote that, if he’s paying thousands of pounds for a holiday, he expects a certain level of service.
‘That level of service cannot be achieved if there are packs of “free-range” kids running around unchecked, creating mayhem and iPad kids having a meltdown every time they’re parted from Minecraft for two seconds,’ he said.
Thomas Pennington said that a simple reason why adult-only venues shouldn’t be banned is that ‘not everyone wants kids’.
One in 10 French people say they don’t want children, more than twice the number from 2005, according to the French Institute for Demographic Studies.
As fewer French people have children, researchers estimate that up to 5% of the holiday market in France is adult-only.
Hotels like Saint-Delis in Honfleur in Normandy promise ‘peaceful’ experiences away from youth, while Camp Laurent in the sunflower fields of Poitou-Charentes brands itself as ‘exclusively for adults’.
French tour operators like Fram and Kuoni are also catering more to ‘adult-only’ holiday experiences.
No family in France has ever taken legal action against a venue for hanging a sign reading ‘no children’, according to French legal experts.
Article 225-1 says people who discriminate against someone ‘based on age or family status’ face three years in prison and €45,000 (£39,000) fine.
As much as the majority of Metro readers disagreed with the idea of banning child-free hotels, Sue Dudley said she feels differently.
‘Each to their own,’ she commented, ‘but I find adult-only very boring.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.