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The recurrent debate about the evaluation of the French Priority Education Policy, which started in 1981, was recently re-opened by the CNESCO (Conseil National d’Evaluation du Système Scolaire – National Council for School System Evaluation) report and its echoes in the media. They were quick to assert that this policy had failed, or even that it had caused an increase in inequalities and segregation, linked to the labelling of the establishments concerned. This article aims to examine the data and studies available systematically, and shows that, far from staying unchanged for the last 35 years, this policy has been changing and uncertain, that its implementation remains insufficiently known, and that its evaluation must be more prudent and balanced. Some studies have instead concluded that this policy and its implementation lacked of strength and coherence from the beginning. After presenting the current “re-founding” of French Priority Education Policy, this paper argues –against the views aiming to oppose them– that the politics of struggle against social and school segregation and the policies that aim to make the functioning of the education system less unequal and preferential should be complementary.