France — Every Sunday, parents in this working - class neighborhood just north of Paris bring their children to a small school operated by the local mosque. Half of the three - hour lesson is devoted to learning Arabic, the other half to learning the Quran.
Now President Emmanuel Macron’s government is considering giving parents a secular alternative to that intertwining of Arabic and Islam by prodding more of France’s public schools to offer children as young as age 6 Arabic lessons — without religious content.
France is home to one of the world’s biggest Arab diasporas, but only a fraction of the country’s public schools have the resources to offer Arabic courses. Instead, tens of thousands of children attend classes partly funded by Arabic - speaking countries, according to the government. Countless others attend private schools linked to mosques, where instruction ranges between teachers with a clear command of Arabic and those who don’t fully understand the language and encourage rote memorization of Quranic verses.
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