French national education is highly centralized: programs, examination timetables and topics are national, and up to now each school’s independence was close to nonexistent. Those equal objectives and means were supposed to result in and guarantee equal results. Therefore, schools aren’t subjected to evaluations, and pupils’ levels and acquired skills were until recently only methodically assessed upon their entering key levels, as a checkup. Throughout “college” (11-15 years old) and “lycee” (15-18 years old), test results are still only transcribed as a numerical grade, and in “ecole primaire” (6-11 years old), skills assessment booklets are used that do not provide very specific information. However since 2005, redefining texts have been aiming at an altogether new culture of evaluating for the French schooling system: – a financial law requires that the Ministry of education provide an annual statement on pupils’ acquirements, – the law “for the future of school” demands that compulsory schooling provide all pupils with the means they need for reaching basic knowledge and skills, – and european scheme decree specific goals regarding language skills. All the conditions allowing an evolution of (our) current evaluating methods are gathered, whether French education will know to seize that opportunity remains to be seen.