The study of the uses of the school failure in French primary education in the nineteenth century reveals the extent to which this was used to facilitate the learning of the best students. It differentiates school elite destined for success in exams certifying that the primary studies, the selection at each stage of the journey leads to relegate children with difficulties to the initial series, where a greater number of students enrolled among the youth entrants. This situation is not without effects on educational inequalities, even if they are attenuated by the modernization efforts undertaken by Republicans from the 1880s. It remains, however, in different forms in the history of the French school system.
school failure; France; inequality