Editing Languages of France (section)

===Language education===
The topic of the teaching of regional languages in public primary and secondary schools is controversial. Proponents of the measure state that it would be necessary for the preservation of those languages and to show respect to the local culture. Opponents contend that local languages are often non-standardised (thus making curricula difficult), of dubious practical usefulness (since most are spoken by a small number of people, without any sizable corpus of publications) and that the curriculum and funding of public schools are already too strained. The topic also leads to wider controversial questions of autonomy of the ''[[région]]s''. Regarding other languages, English, Spanish, Italian and German are the most commonly studied foreign languages in French schools.

In April 2001, the Minister of Education, [[Jack Lang (French politician)|Jack Lang]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://prouvenco.presso.free.fr/archi.educ.html#lang |title=Educacioun |publisher=Prouvenco.presso.free.fr |access-date=2015-03-30}}</ref>  stated formally that "Depuis plus de deux siècles, les pouvoirs politiques ont combattu les langues régionales", ie for more than two centuries, the political powers of the French government had repressed regional languages, and announced that bilingual education would, for the first time, be recognised, and bilingual teachers recruited in French public schools.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/178066-declaration-de-m-jack-lang-ministre-de-leducation-nationale-sur-len |title=Déclaration de M. Jack Lang, ministre de l'éducation nationale, sur l'enseignement des langues régionales, notamment le breton, Paris le 28 mai 2001 |publisher=vie-publique.fr |access-date=2023-12-22}}</ref>