Episode 11

Infrarouge – Season 19

The Arabic-speaking community in France is the one that transmits its language of origin the least. Although Arabic is the country's second most widely spoken language, with between 3 and 4 million speakers, it is taught in only 3% of secondary schools, less than Russian and Chinese. Why don't the children of immigrants from Arab countries speak their parents' language? Why are so many French people of Arab origin ashamed of their mother tongue? Why does every political debate on the teaching of Arabic in republican schools turn into a fistfight? Why is Arabic considered a taboo?