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This article aims to study the policy of relaxation of school zoning implemented in 2007. The policy has two official goals: to provide more freedom to parents in school choice and to promote social diversity. The analysis first examines the achievement of these goals (notably by comparing old and new criteria of school choice) and the informal procedures used in implementing the policy. Secondly, a statistical analysis of official indicators at the school level shows how the social origins of pupils have evolved in three municipalities (Paris, Bordeaux, Lille). The article puts forward converging results. The new criteria of school choice give priority to scholarship holders’ applications (of which there are few). At the same time, they allow for some previously banned applications, often those of more well-off applicants. Empirical evidence of this is given by data on the social origins of middle school pupils. From 2007 to 2008, well-off schools experienced an increase in the share of well-off pupils; inversely, working-class middle schools became even more disadvantaged, particularly the so-called « ambition réussite » middle schools. Data support these results for Paris, Bordeaux and Lille, the three municipalities studied. This trend of decreasing social diversity is not shown by the data for the years preceding the relaxation of school zoning (for 2005 and 2006), or only so with limited evidence. The new criteria of school choice thus favor the freedom of parents to choose the school, but to the detriment of social diversity in schools.