Child-free train carriages: has push for adults-only spaces gone too far?

Little girl looking out of the window on a train

Travelling with kids ‘is not a problem to be fixed’, says French high commissioner for children

(Image credit: Oscar Wong / Getty)

The “distractions of Donald Trump and Davos” proved an “opportune” moment for France’s state-owned rail operator SNCF to “slip out some news”, said Gavin Mortimer in The Spectator. “Welcome to ‘Optimum’, the new and exclusive area of the train where kids are not welcome.”

Promising a “calm journey that’s ideal for working or relaxing”, the new adults-only first-class carriage on weekday high-speed trains in and out of Paris will be out of bounds for children under 12. And to ensure “little Gallic brats” don’t disrupt the quiet, “even briefly”, the carriage will be “located at the end of the train to prevent other passengers from walking through the Optimum-dedicated area”.

‘Shocking’ and ‘sick’

If the SNCF thought this would pass under the radar, “they were mistaken”, said Mortimer in The Spectator. “In a rare moment of unity”, French MPs of all political stripes have expressed “outrage” at the child ban.

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“It’s shocking,” Sarah El Haïry, France’s high commissioner for children, said on BFM. “Travelling with children is not a problem to be fixed, but a reality to be supported.” The left-wing MP François Ruffin said the ban showed French society is “sick”, while former interior minister and president of The Republicans party, Bruno Retailleau, said it was “everything France must not become”.

Referencing France’s plummeting birth rate – now at its lowest level since 1918 – the National Assembly MEP Marion Maréchal said that, for a country “in need of children”, the SNCF’s “anti-family message” was “deplorable”.

The arrival of the child-free train carriage only adds to France’s ongoing debate about adult-only spaces, said The Guardian. Last year, Laurence Rossignol, a socialist senator, called for a curb on the rising number of child-free hotels and holiday resorts. “We can’t organise society by separating children off from ourselves in the way some establishments don’t take dogs,” she said. “Children aren’t troublesome pets.”

‘Right to tantrum-free spaces’

I think the child-free carriage is a “magnificent idea”, said Fiona McIntosh in The Independent. “Imagine being able to read your book without the need for noise-cancelling headphones? Or drink your coffee, rather than wear it, because some child has kicked the back of your seat?” I don’t dislike children but, now my daughters have grown up, I think I have “earned the right to tantrum-free spaces”. And it isn’t at all surprising that the French “would come up” with this idea: their attitude to young children is far “stricter than our laissez-faire, Anglo Saxon approach”.

It’s actually quite a reasonable proposition: the Optimum carriage is only available Monday to Friday during “peak business travel” on just 8% of the SNCF’s express trains. “Surely this segregation is a win-win for everyone?” Parents don’t have the “stress of trying to contain a toddler in a carriage full of accountants tapping away on their spreadsheets”, and their kids can still go “free range in the other 92% of the train”. Having child-free spaces “is not discrimination; it’s making travel a more comfortable experience for everyone”.

“This debate is not new,” said The Independent’s Helen Coffey. Everything from adults-only zones on planes to child-free weddings sparks controversy online. While I agree that kids can be a “total vibe killer”, part of being an adult is realising that “the world doesn’t actually revolve around you” and learning to “make compromises”, including rubbing along with those you don’t like.

Sadly, hostility towards children in public places “is growing”, said Rachel Connelly in The Guardian. Quite often, I see people “tutting or muttering” when a parent arrives with a child in a restaurant or cafe. “God forbid if the baby starts to cry, as babies do.” Making public spaces “absent of children seems to speak to a fantasy of a world where the lives we live are totally detached from the lives of the people around us” – when, of course, they aren’t. Just imagine “if this fantasy were reality: our lives would be very small and boring”.

Irenie Forshaw is the features editor at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.