An outgoing RN MP believes that French people with dual nationality should not be ministers. And takes the example of the socialist Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.
Roger Chudeau explained that during her time at the Ministry of National Education, she “wanted to introduce Arabic learning for students in CP.
The ex-elect is relaunching a controversy almost ten years old. At the time, there were no plans to impose Arabic in primary school for all students.
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Sometimes presented as the “Mr. Education of the RN”, the outgoing deputy Roger Chudeau caused an outcry after an intervention on the air of BFMTV. He in fact considered that French people with dual nationality should not be appointed ministers.
He then took as an example the former Minister of National Education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (2014-2017), Franco-Moroccan. The latter, assured the representative of the National Rally, “wanted to introduce Arabic lessons in CP”. On social networks, Jean Messiha gave his support to the RN parliamentarian. “Najat Vallaud-Belkacem established compulsory Arabic lessons at school from primary school upon her accession to National Education”a https://twitter.com/JeanMessiha/status/1806609189155852399 the Reconquest candidate in the legislative elections. Misleading words.
An optional language, such as Turkish or Portuguese
Marine Le Pen quickly disavowed the outgoing elected official of her party, considering that his comments on dual nationality were part of a “personal opinion” without link to the official line of the RN. His position also caused Emmanuel Macron to react, who mentioned a “dissolution of minds and consciences”.
If he later assured that it was a “strictly personal opinion and in no way commits the RN”, Roger Chudeau has rekindled a controversy that is actually already old. His attacks on Najat Vallaud-Belkacem take us back to 2016, when she held the post on rue de Grenelle. In the ranks of the right, she was accused of wanting to generalize the learning of Arabic in schools. The outgoing MP, on BFMTV, for his part slipped in that she was “the only minister” to have “propose” teaching “early” of this language across France.
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Eight years ago, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem had hoped that “teaching Arabic” be done “from CP”as soon as the State has the “means to do it”. It was, in his words, about promoting “a diversity of the offer of modern foreign languages”. Be careful, however: it was not a question of generalizing Arabic lessons to all CP students, but of developing a system which was called at the time “Language and Culture of Origin Teaching”, or “Original Language and Culture Teaching”. ELCO”.
Offered under conditions in certain classes from CE1, this program was aimed at the children of immigrant workers. Participation was optional, and allowed students, outside of school hours and in addition to other learning, to benefit from 1h30 to 3h of weekly lessons in a foreign language. Portuguese, Turkish, Italian, Serbo-Croatian or Spanish were among the possible choices, as was Arabic. The minister wanted a change so that these lessons could begin earlier in schooling, while maintaining an optional nature.
“I believe that in our country, if there is one thing to do, it is to diversify the languages that students learn at school, because all these languages have their legitimacy and their interest”proclaimed Najat Vallaud-Belkacem at that time. “Is there a question of imposing the learning of Arabic in first grade? The answer is no”, she insisted in response to the controversies targeting her. If a reform project had been carried out, so – among other things – that these “ELCOs” were provided by French teachers, the system ended up disappearing a few years after controversies. On February 18, 2020, Emmanuel Macron announced the end of these courses, which were taught to 80,000 students across the territory.
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