Foreign Perspectives

If you’ve been watching the “moving to France” TV series that seem to be on almost non-stop these days, you’d think that there would be no problem in getting kids into school here. After all, the kids just seem to go to the local school and if they don’t speak French, it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Perhaps you’re thinking that the presence of a TV crew eases the process considerably and I’ve no doubt that it does. However, we’ve friends and aquaintances in other regions of France and they’ve never had a problem in getting their children enrolled in school regardless of age or ability in French.

Things are different in the Pyrenees Orientale though.

If your child isn’t a fluent French speaker by the time they hit 16, then they will not be educated by any school in the state education system within the Pyrenees Orientale. What happens at that age is that you are passed onto Inspection Academic who in turn pass you on to the College Albert Camus and specifically the CIPPA class so that you can learn French and thereby get into an appropriate lycee (for age 17-18). There is only one problem with that scenario: Madame Benzine runs CIPPA as a remedial class for children from French speaking countries and just treats any non-French speakers as an inconvenience to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The net effect of that is that if your child has no other option than CIPPA (and they won’t be given any other option if they reach 16 and don’t speak French fluently here), then that’s the end of their education.

Surely, not? Don’t children have some right to education up to 18? I thought so, but apparently the French locally read the fact that schooling is optional after age 16 as meaning that they don’t need to provide it and in particular don’t need to provide any means to teach you French after age 16. Having said that, everyone in the administrative side of education seems to think that CIPPA does actually teach French (and perhaps it is supposed to) but Madame Benzine chooses to ignore that and seems to go out of her way to encourage non-French speakers to leave the class as soon as possible. “You missed a class because your car was being repaired and the bus drivers were on strike? You should have walked in”. “How? It’s over 30km: it would have taken five or six hours”. “I gave him a question sheet every morning and he didn’t answer any of the questions on it. He has no motivation.” Emmm, he can’t read French and couldn’t understand the questions. “It’s mathematics: of course he could understand it:. He’s just lazy. ” Actually, no, because the questions are entirely in French. That’s the kind of person running CIPPA in Perpignan.

It’s not much easier from age 11 to 16 either, as all colleges that don’t have to take your child, quite simply won’t take them if they don’t speak fluent French (and I do stress “fluent”: they won’t accept anything less). Instead, they will direct you toward the Inspection Academic in Perpignan who in turn will pass directly to the CIPPA class. If your child is in that age range, you can get them accepted into the college designated for your commune but even then it’s not always easy but never accept the CIPPA option if your child is in that age range.

What about primary school then? That’s a little easier than the college as they are attached to the various mairies therefore the one associated with your commune will have to take your children from age 6 to 11. However, those not attached to your commune will usually refuse to accept your child unless they happen to be fluent French speakers. Would you be happy with your 11 year old having to get up around 6am to catch the first bus into town, then changing buses in the centre of town to get to a remedial class in a country where they don’t speak the language? That’s the option you’ll be given if you don’t push the matter with your own mairie.

We have, surprisingly, managed nursery school with, so far, no problems. However, we fully expect that James will encounter problems getting into primary school in this area. Even now, the local doctor couldn’t understand why he couldn’t speak French. Why would he? If we spoke French to him he’d just end up with a dreadful French accent not to mention bad grammar and vocabulary. Oh, and he’d not learn to speak English.

The strange thing is that the French always talk about integrating immigrants into French society. I don’t know about elsewhere, but in the Pyrenees Orientale, it’s definitely all talk because there’s certainly no support given to you if your children don’t speak fluent French.

The other strange thing is that the teachers (except Madame Benzine) all seem to be quite supportive of the kids and fully expect that children of all ages will pick up the language fairly quickly. The problem seems to be that the administrators simply won’t let them try and without the approval of an administrator you just can’t get into a school.

Arnold

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