Brussels, 09/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The nine regionalist or nationalist MEPs of the European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA Group at the European Parliament), Miquel Mayol, Carlos Bautista, Jill Evans, Ian Hudghton, Neil MacCormick, Nelly Maes, Camilo Nogueira, Josu Ortuondo and Eurig Wyn, have submitted a proposal of resolution on France's failure to respect the linguistic rights of French citizens, following two State Council decisions which, on 28 October, cancelled several ministerial decrees and circular letters relating to teaching in regional languages. They note that the Constitution and the law of the French Republic as interpreted by the French State's administrative jurisdiction bring into question education delivered in native regional languages. They mention Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Creole, Flemish, Franco-Provençal and Occitan. "This situation is so contrary to the European values of promoting linguistic and cultural diversity and the respect of minorities that the Strasbourg Parliament (sic) cannot accept that a Member State, however powerful and prestigious, can flout these values", MEPs write, calling on the French State to bring its linguistic laws into line with Europe.
The two State Council decisions come within the continuity of jurisprudence of French administrative and constitutional jurisdictions. Their main impact is that they prevent the integration of the Diwan Breton schools into the state education system. These 38 schools managed by the Diwan association have the status of private schools under contract of association with the State and thus have the advantage of having the cost of their teaching staff covered, but not the other operating costs. They have suffered from financial difficulties for several years. Their integration into the state education system would have made it possible to resolve this problem but the State Council cancelled the decision because of the practice of linguistic immersion (teaching of all subjects in Breton). The State Council considers the method runs counter to the Constitution, which provides for the language of the French Republic to be French, and to the law that imposes French as the language used in schools, although it may tolerate some exceptions.
It should be noted that, on the basis of a census carried out in the years 2000-2001, over 152,557 pupils received teaching in regional languages and cultures. Despite an increasing move towards teaching in regional languages over recent years, the result is still very moderate in so far as this total covers pupils dispersed throughout various levels at school and in college. It is also often simply a matter of lessons for initiation to the regional culture in the younger classes. As far as the three regions of the Rhine and the Moselle are concerned, EUROPE recalls that these regions in fact benefit from early teaching in German, which comes within their specific bilingual and legal status, but they do not provide real schooling of Alsatian or Moselle dialects. Bilingual teaching mainly concerns Brittany (1980 pupils in state education, 1725 in private religious schools and 1726 for Diwan - a total of some 600 pupils were concerning at the college stage and nearly 500 in the only Diwan grammar school), and the Basque Country (4900 pupils in schools, 950 in colleges and 200 in three grammar schools).