France’s ELCO Program and How Partner Countries Perceive It

Abstract

  This article examines France’s enseignements de langue et de culture d’origine (ELCO), which is provided under bilateral agreements signed between France and nine countries of origin. Rather than focusing on how the program is perceived by France (the host country), I focus on how it is perceived by the nine partner countries (the homelands of the immigrants participating in the program).

  ELCO is a program for teaching languages and cultures of origin. It is available in French public schools primarily for the benefit of the children of immigrants. The nine partner countries are Algeria, Croatia, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey. These countries recruit, deploy, and remunerate the ELCO teachers. The ELCO teachers deliver one 1.5-hour ELCO class a week, usually outside of regular class hours.

  ELCO was established in 1973 for the purpose of helping its students master their mother tongues, thus contributing to France’s immigrant education policy. The program has proven extremely controversial. Some have called for the program’s abolition, claiming that it fuels discrimination and hinders assimilation into French society. However, this picture is one-sided, coming entirely from the French side and reflecting French values and mores. Critics ignore the perspective of the countries of origin, placing the focus exclusively on the host country. To obtain a more nuanced picture of the ELCO program, I analyzed how the program is perceived by ELCO teachers and relevant personnel at the embassies and consulates of the partner countries. The data was obtained from interviews with these individuals as well as from materials provided by the individuals at the time of the interview.

  Of all the criticisms leveled at ELCO, this article is most concerned with the claim that the program is insular. ELCO is independent from regular public school education, which, according to the critics, means that it runs counter to core French principles, such as unity, indivisibility, and the French conception of equality. Critics also claim that children who take ELCO classes may remain forever bound by their countries of origin. These arguments may have once been valid; ELCO was exclusive to children with foreign roots for many years. However, in the late 2000s, the program started welcoming all children, regardless of their origin. It would be silly, then, to still claim that ELCO remains insular.

  My analysis indicated four key trends in the ELCO program. First, the notion that ELCO is for the children of immigrants, as suggested in the phrase “of origin” (d’origine), is now being downplayed. In 2016, ELCO was renamed enseignements internationaux de langues étrangères (EILE; “international teaching of foreign languages”). This renaming—the first in the program’s history—has been received favorably by the countries of origin.

  The second trend concerns the program’s openness. Most children in ELCO classes are from the relevant country of origin, but an increasing proportion is not. To some of the children participating in ELCO, the language of origin represents a purely foreign language. These children participate to learn the language from an introductory level. To other children, the language represents not a complete foreign language but a heritage language. These children participate to learn more formally the language that they would have learned to some extent at home. In yet other cases, the language represents the students’ mother tongue. These children participate in ELCO to master their mother tongue, which is the original purpose of the program. The sheer diversity among the students can present a challenge to the teachers, yet every teacher interviewed rated this aspect favorably. One criticism of the program is that it covers only nine countries of origin. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)