Scrapping French lessons  ‘erodes Swiss cohesion’

Baume-Schneider calls abolition of early French an affront Keystone-SDA

Canton Zurich's decision to scrap French lessons in primary schools is an affront to French-speaking Switzerland and risks eroding national cohesion, according to interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider.

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“This is a development that I take very seriously”, she said in an interview published by Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung newspapers on Suday,

As interior minister, Baume-Schneider has responsibility for culture and national language policy in an interview broadcast on Sunday .

“The Federal Council is convinced that the cantons are capable of resolving the language issue themselves. But we also know that the Confederation must act if they fail to do so,” she added, stressing that she would be presenting the Federal Council with various options this month.

Opposite trend in French-speaking Switzerland

Baume-Schneider points to an opposite trend in French-speaking Switzerland, where the number of hours of German teaching is tending to increase. “Some people have the feeling that ‘we French-speakers’ are making an effort, while the German-speaking Swiss are moving away from the national languages”.

For the minister, the fact that Swiss pupils do poorly in French or German at the end of primary school is no reason to put off learning the national languages until later.

“In the PISA study, Swiss pupils also achieved disappointing results, particularly in mathematics,” she said. “So we asked ourselves how we could improve. But no-one would have thought of postponing maths teaching until secondary school.”

Eralier this week, the Zurich parliament decided to abolish the teaching of French at primary school by 108 votes to 64.

The motion adopted instructs the government, which deplores the decision, to create the legal basis within two years so that French is only taught from the ninth school year and not from the fifth year as is currently the case.

Translated from German with DeepL/mga

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