The government of France has proposed the introduction of official state Arabic-language instruction in the schools. The program is intended to discourage French Muslims from sending their children to mosque schools to learn Arabic, thereby reducing the incidence of “radicalization”.

Uh-huh. Right.

It reminds me of the rationale first put forward under the Bush 43 administration for refraining from criticizing Islam: It would only play into the hands of the “Islamists” by driving the “moderates” into the “radical” camp.

In other words, Muslims lack self-control. They’re always on a hair trigger, ready to “radicalize” the moment an infidel makes an “Islamophobic” remark.

The first of the two videos below contains a discussion of the proposed program of Arabic instruction, followed by a response from Robert Ménard, the outspoken mayor of Béziers in southern France.

The second video features remarks by Marine Le Pen, the leader of Rassemblement National (formerly Front National).

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video 1:

Video 2:

Note: The transcript for video #1 appears in two parts because it was composited from two separate original clips.

Video transcript #1a:

00:00 “We need to relaunch the learning of the Arabic language because the Arabic classes in the mosques 00:04 became for the Islamists the best way to attract young people to 00:08 the mosques and schools.” And school! —Of course, of course. 00:12 This diagnosis is evident. And therefore we could… — Are we going to relaunch the teaching 00:16 of the Arabic language? —Yes, in that, well, those are subjects 00:20 that are so sensitive that we cannot bring them the way 00:24 you’re doing it right now. — I understand, I understand, but… —However, what is obvious first is: 00:28 the development of the learning of languages, and Arabic is a very important language, just like 00:32 other great civilizational languages, I mean Chinese which is now developing a lot, or Russian. 00:35 Yes. —So yes, of course, we need to develop those languages: Arabic, Chinese, Russian. 00:38 They are very important. We have to give prestige to those languages, especially Arabic, 00:42 which is a huge literary language and which has to be learned not only by people who 00:49 are originally from Maghreb, or originally from countries with Arabic languages. So therefore 00:53 this entire qualitative strategy towards the Arabic language is what we’ll be introducing. 00:57 We’ll also question the way Arabic is taught nowadays in the dedicated structures with the 01:01 “communitarist drifting” [ghettoization of Muslims] that you just mentioned. And thus 01:04 that is the vision of the whole that we will have. 01:07 Learning English could be the learning of Arabic in CP [prep classes]. 01:10 —Well, of course. All the languages, there is no exclusion 01:14 it’s certain that with English today, 80-90% of it 01:18 is taught in elementary school, but you also have German, but you could 01:22 of course have other languages: Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, 01:26 Chinese, Italian. [sic, mentioned twice]



Video transcript #1b:

00:00 You can come to the neighborhoods, you will see what is going on, but 00:04 you must be joking! Today youth of the third or fourth generation 00:08 often speak a sort of “Frarabic”, which is the greatest barrier 00:12 to their integration. To go in this direction is to continue in this direction! 00:16 What they need is the FRENCH classes, Madame! Today, when I 00:20 see that the government is asking us to let them use schools, schools 00:24 in the evening, for the Arabic classes, but this is madness! That we give the means to integrate 00:28 into France to those families whose members don’t speak French well, 00:31 where there’s no French culture, and in order to integrate into France you have to speak French! 00:38 Yes, but it’s not contradictory, it could not be… —Therefore the priority is French for everybody! 00:41 Unfortunately, of course, it’s contradic… —contradictory. It could be NOT contradictory 00:45 But… of course it’s a contradiction in terms! 00:49 Today the means we have, and the limited means we have in all the fields 00:53 need to be concentrated in what’s essential. Today, allow me to tell you, 00:57 that if you want assimilate people, integrate a certain number 01:02 of immigrants, they have to — first of all — speak our language! 01:06 That’s it! You know what that measure is? It’s flattery of communitarism [Muslim ghettoization]! 01:10 This measure means playing with communitarism! This measure is playing with 01:14 fire. And those who play with the fire will be responsible for 01:18 tomorrow’s conflagration! If in my town, today, I need something, 01:22 it’s that French be taught to boys and girls 01:26 who speak it poorly.



Video transcript #2: