[Tribune] Linguistic policy: time for a start?

107,000 Breton speakers today, a drop of 50% in the space of a few years. What’s surprising? The old ones go away and are not replaced by new speakers. Language policy is a disaster with the rate of increase in the number of children enrolled in bilingual education in free fall for years and is currently between 0 and 1%.
And yet, we dare to reassure ourselves by telling us that in 2027, 30,000 students will be trained. With such a rate of progress? We no longer know how to count in Brittany? We have been sounding the alarm for years. For one sector that opens, another closes elsewhere. The Brittany region accuses the State of not training enough teachers, but when does it put pressure on it?

With the Marshall Languages ​​Plan, we proposed putting in place this vast training plan for hundreds of teachers on the job, as in Corsica. We have all the associations likely to be able to train them. It has never been discussed and the Brittany region has never publicly demanded it. Instead of blaming the state, we need to confront internal factors. The Basques already educated almost half of their children in the Basque language, and without even needing the Molac law.

“It is the Breton people who must mobilize today through grassroots associations. »

Let’s ask ourselves about the many blocking factors that we need to know how to isolate. In 2016, with the Breizh Impacte association, we asked the Region for an evaluation of the language policy by a professional third party. We already knew it wasn’t working. We are still waiting for this assessment. Teachers block opening projects or dismantle sectors, municipalities are sometimes not left out, parents do not do enough despite the attraction of bilingualism. Is it up to public office officials to carry out sector opening projects alone? We know it doesn’t work.

It is the Breton people who must mobilize today through grassroots associations. One by one, we will have to remove all these blockages. A real policy must know how to adapt to the field. We need a revolution of minds and who could be at the origin of it if not the Brittany region? Language policy must be the priority of regional power. Political pressure must be constant. We must put an end to the duplicity that too often characterizes our elected officials. The insufficient number of state-trained teachers must no longer be a cheap excuse. The product to be offered to parents must be presented in a more advantageous manner. No doubt he will have to take on the trappings of multilingualism.

I hope that this public announcement of the surrounding disaster will be the factor of awareness and renewal which will involve a major public debate. What is more important to a people than the survival of their language? What is more favorable to the spirit of openness and equal opportunities than multilingualism from an early age? Those who call for the destruction of our languages ​​are the same ones who, in the beautiful neighborhoods of Paris, send their children to expensive bilingual courses.