When some French schools reopen in September this year, they will pilot a mandatory school uniform under a two-year trial period initiated by Education Minister Gabriel Attal. The initiative aims to tackle inequality among French students and reduce bullying and peer pressure. But some public school teachers, psychologists and experts remain sceptical, saying the uniforms are just putting a “plaster” on such issues. 

European Council president Charles Michel announced Sunday that he will step down early, setting off a race against time for EU leaders to find a successor for the key position.

In Portugal, the home ownership rate among young people has plummeted by 50% over two generations, leaving Portugal’s youngest with little choice but to struggle to find financial independence or leave the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday praised former finance minister and European Commission president Jacques Delors at a state funeral, saying he had “reconciled Europe with its future”. FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris-Trent reports.

Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, is facing increasingly strong opposition inside the Vatican. The conservative clan of the Roman Curia – the powerful governing body of the Holy See – accuses him of a laxist vision of Catholic doctrine, particularly regarding the status of homosexual couples and divorced people in the Church. Our Rome correspondent Natalia Mendoza reports from the Vatican’s corridors of power on this growing conflict between tradition and modernity.

As the second anniversary of the Ukraine conflict looms, the female relatives of Russia’s mobilised men are becoming more and more outspoken in calling for their loved ones to come home, with their pickets and impassioned appeals gaining traction on social media. Their activism, despite being largely ignored by state media, remains a sensitive issue for the Kremlin, which is keen to project an image of national unity around President Vladimir Putin ahead of his inevitable re-election in a vote this March.