Report: Teaching Arabic in French Schools Raises Controversy

After the Respecting the Principles of the Republic bill was presented to the French Cabinet, teaching Arabic in French schools has stirred controversy and a wide debate among the political elite and the intellectuals.

In his first media statement on this issue, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on the Brut website, "France is lucky to embrace people whose families speak Arabic at home.”

Macron added that he wanted young people seeking to learn the Arabic language in French schools to be able to do so at state schools as part of a "policy of recognition”.

In a statement by MP Bruno Bonnell to Sky News Arabia, he stressed that the Arabic language is one of the beautiful, living languages ​​that must be taken care of more in France.

“We have many young people who speak Arabic in their homes because the parents’ culture is Arabic, and what we seek is to help them improve their mother tongue, but inside the French school,” he added.

Regarding the reasons for this new government's approach, the parliamentarian explains, "We fear that some places for teaching Arabic, such as associations and others, will present ideas of a separatist tendency, and that teaching Arabic may be used to convey extremist ideas about the republic.”

The controversy arises about reforming the teaching of Arabic at schools, which was also raised in 2016, after the then Minister of National Education, Najat Vallo Belkacem, was subjected to racist insults on social media. 

She also angered some political spectrums by seeking to replace the system of the foreign language in primary education.

In response to this step, right-wing voices considered that "introducing community languages" into school curricula and teaching Arabic could undermine national cohesion.

Right-wing currents consider the draft law, in its text that seeks to strengthen the presence of the Arabic language in schools, seeks to Arabize France, and some associate it with permitting Islamic religious education within the institutions subject to the principles of secularism.

Others believe that the children of immigrants, of French origin, should be fluent in French and only speak Arabic in their homes.

Early 2020, Macron announced the suspension of the system of optional courses in foreign languages ​​that belong to nine countries represented in Algeria, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey. That decision affected about 80 thousand students annually.

Arabic in French schools

The Arabic language is classified within the French education system as a foreign language within the language of minorities, despite it being the language of more than 10 million Arabs and the language of religion of 20 million Muslims living in Europe. 

“Because it originated in a non-European environment, it is the language of the minority even though there are more native speakers than Dutch speakers," said Director of the International Center for Arab Studies in Paris Yahya Al-Sheikh to Sky News Arabia.

Al-Sheikh added that, until 1986, the number of Arabic language students in French institutions (middle schools and high schools) was 13,000, noting that there was no Arab education in the primary schools.

“Since 2000, the number has decreased to less than 7,000, and it is dwindling significantly,” he revealed. 

It’s noteworthy that about 14,000 students received Arabic lessons at the beginning of the 2019 school year, out of a total of more than 5.6 million students, according to the figures of the Ministry of National Education.

Although the number remains small, it represents a significant increase, compared to 2007, when the number of Arabic language students did not exceed 6,512 students, according to Le Monde newspaper.

Arabic was chosen as a third language in high school by 3,834 students at the beginning of the 2019 academic year, far behind Italian (33,969 students) or Chinese (17,463 students), according to data published by the Ministry of Education.