Basques, Bretons, Catalans, Corsicans or Alsatians: thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday in different cities of France to defend “
immersive education
” in regional languages.
Read also: Regional languages: François Bayrou protests against their censorship by the Constitutional Council
“
People are there because they are afraid that association schools will be closed. The decision of the Constitutional Council could deprive them of all their funding
"and"
calls into question an educational method used for more than 50 years
», Declared to AFP the deputy of Morbihan Paul Molac (Liberties and Territories), present among the 6,000 Breton demonstrators in Guingamp (according to the prefecture, 10,000 according to the organizers). He is the author of the law on regional languages, voted on April 8 in the Assembly and partially rebutted on May 21 by the Constitutional Council, which censored the immersive method at school, that is to say teaching carried out largely in a language other than French, as well as the use of diacritics such as the tilde (~) in civil status documents.
In Bayonne, 10,000 people according to the organizers, 6,000 according to the police, demonstrated in the streets of the city, in a calm and family atmosphere, but with fierce determination. "
We need solutions so that one in five children in kindergarten is not found unconstitutional at the start of the school year,
" demanded Peio Jorajuria, president of the Federation of immersive associative schools, known as ikastola, where 5,000 children attend school. In tight rows, the children marched behind the signs of their respective schools.
In Perpignan, a thousand Catalans also marched to the sound of drums, waving “
blood and gold
”
flags
.
“
Looks like they don't know what an immersive school is.
They believe that we do not learn French,
”lamented Elena Gual, director of the Arrels school, a public immersion school in Perpignan.
To read also: “Cultural richness” and “intellectual flexibility”, what are the contributions of the immersive school?
In Bastia, Corsican polyphonic songs closed at midday the demonstration of a little less than 200 people, including the leader of the independence movement "
Corsica Libera
" and president of the Assembly of Corsica, Jean-Guy Talamoni, in front of the academic inspection for the defense of the Corsican language.
Two banners were displayed with the message “
So that our languages live
”.
“
It is a fundamental mobilization.
The Constitutional Council denied a democratic fact.
What is happening is extremely serious.
It calls into question all the teaching devices of the Corsican language
”, launched at the microphone Ghjiseppu Turchini, teacher of Corsican language.
In Lille, around 40 people have asked the rectorate for primary education in Picard and the recruitment of Flemish teachers.