Parcoursup: the president acknowledges the platform needs a deep overhaul, and lycée pupils go to Matignon on Monday. What is known, and which route into university applies to a foreign family

What happened. On Friday 23 October, Emmanuel Macron spent about three hours at the Élysée with representatives of lycée pupils. According to people around the president, he acknowledged that Parcoursup needs a "refonte en profondeur" — a deep overhaul — and promised concrete decisions from Monday. The president made no public statement himself; this is what his entourage relayed. The government is not proposing to scrap Parcoursup, which pupils' and students' organisations are demanding, and has turned that idea down several times.

On Sunday 25 October, Matignon said that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu would receive pupils' and students' organisations on Monday 26 October from 2:30 p.m. Later that day, the national education minister, Édouard Geffray, and the higher education minister, Philippe Baptiste, are due to speak to the press. Also on Sunday, France Universités, which brings together about 70 university presidents, warned that abolishing the platform without a ready replacement would end badly for the next cohort of bac holders.

What does not exist yet. When this text was prepared, no decision had been announced. A presidential promise does not change the rules: the calendar for the 2027 Parcoursup session has been published, and no change to it has been reported. It makes sense to prepare on the current calendar and to check on Monday evening what the ministers actually announce.

The Parcoursup 2027 calendar

• from 17 December 2026 — information phase, the catalogue of programmes opens;
• 18 January to 11 March 2027 — registration and entering wishes (vœux);
• by 1 April 2027 — complete the file and confirm wishes;
• 1 June to 10 July 2027 — answers from institutions, main admission phase;
• 10 June to 9 September 2027 — complementary phase.

Parcoursup is not for everyone: the route for a foreign national

This is where newcomers most often get confused. Service-public page F2864 (checked on 5 December 2025) sorts cases by nationality, country of residence and diploma:

• An EU national applies to the first year of a licence through the same procedure as a French student — Parcoursup, from late December to mid-March. The one difference: the file must include school records and the secondary-school leaving diploma.
• A non-European living in Europe generally applies to the first year of a licence with a demande d'admission préalable (DAP). It is usually filed between early October and mid-December of the year before the intended start. For a September 2027 start, that window is open now.
• Residents of one of the 73 countries covered by the Études en France procedure go through it. Someone in that group who is preparing a French or European baccalauréat also enters wishes on Parcoursup in parallel. An EU national living in such a country only needs Parcoursup.
• Refugees, stateless persons and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection (status granted by Ofpra) apply directly to the university, with no DAP and no French-language check. Selective programmes (BTS, DUT, preparatory classes) go through Parcoursup. The final document granting protection is required: a récépissé for a pending application is not enough.
• A master's goes through the Mon Master platform; the second and third years of a licence and the doctorate usually go directly through the institution.

One case is not covered separately on that page: a non-EU pupil who lives in France and is sitting the French baccalauréat. It is worth checking early — with the professeur principal at the lycée or with the Parcoursup service itself — before December rather than in March.

The typical mistake is waiting for January because "Parcoursup opens in January". For those who must file a DAP, the deadline falls in mid-December. One more rule from the same page: for a selective programme, if the administration has not replied to an enrolment request within two months, that silence counts as a refusal.

Background and what comes next

The lycée movement has been going for more than a month; its demands include scrapping Parcoursup, more funding and more university places. The platform itself has run since 2018 and, according to France Universités, has been improved several times since. The protests are not over: the gilets jaunes have called a further day of action on Saturday 31 October, and the CFDT, CGT, FO, Unsa and FSU unions are maintaining their call for a strike and demonstrations on Thursday 5 November. School holidays run until 2 November.

This text is general information, not individual advice: where an admission is disputed, the rules point to the institution itself or to Campus France.