If you make something compulsory, a whole system springs up around meeting that compulsion.

If the government mandates kindergarten attendance, well, now it's much more important to put funding for kindergartens in your next bill.

If every parent of a three-year-old has to think about finding a kindergarten, that's a lot more political clout behind getting better kindergartens.

And so on and so forth.

I don’t think this will change anything statistically.

I have no numbers but as a French, I know literally nobody who have not been to school/kindergarten at 3.

Starting school at 3, while not mandatory before the law, was just the norm for barely everyone.

That makes sense. Such a system would also have to include transportation, food, etc. It's probably a good move if the funding is there. France is wealthy enough I think.

I'm guessing what they mean is that it removes some of the financial barriers to parents during early childhood: they can return to work because their child is in school/daycare for most of the day, at limited to no cost to them.

Even if they aren't both working, it allows the home partner to return to being a full time homemaker, and all that that entails: pursuing hobbies or volunteer opportunities, managing the family social life, planning parties and outings, etc. All of these things are potentially much more fulfilling and life giving than spending up to a decade burning yourself to the ground waiting for multiple kids to finally be in full time school so you can have your days back.

Because now government know exactly how many kids it has to fund daycare for and where the facilities should be.

I’d even go as far as parental leave should be completely covered until there is government provided daycare, so as the decision to have kids doesn’t carry too much of an economic burden.

Disheartening to see software people praising removal of options using among all things incompetence as justification.

If you prefer to not send your kid to daycare or to continue to work while you have the option of caring for your kid, that's up to you. Where did I praised removal of options? What option is being removed here?