English Replaces French in Algeria’s Primary Education

Algeria‘s decision to move away from the French language, a byproduct of France’s long and bloody colonial history in the North African country, and towards English has been perceived by many Algerians as long overdue.

“French is a spoil of war, but English is an international language,” President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said in an interview on Saturday.

Algeria has long had a fraught relationship with France, following 130 years of French colonisation and an eight-year war of independence that left hundreds of thousands dead.

‘I see it among my students, people are giving up on the French language and moving towards English’

– Abdelmadjid Bouguedra, university lecturer

Even after the French occupation ended in 1962, the country’s political and business elite continued to use the French language, which was widely seen as distinguishing the civilised from the rest of society.

“Just 60 years overdue,” a 30-year-old Algerian man told Middle East Eye, wryly, upon hearing the announcement.

While the initiative will not do away with French, it will see the English language, which is normally first taught in the first year of high school, introduced at primary school.

Abdennour Toumi, a North African studies expert at the Orsam Center in Ankara, described the current debate as going back almost 50 years. The phrase that French is “a spoil of war” was first uttered by Algerian poet Kateb Yacine at a “time where politicians, intellectuals and militants were debating the use of French on university campuses,” Toumi told Middle East Eye.

Yacine considered the use of French as Algeria’s national lingua franca “a neocolonial political machine, which only perpetuates our alienation”.

“I believe this delicate issue need not be politicised; it should be left to experts,” said Toumi, warning that “the national language, Arabic, is also facing serious problems”, with students ranging from elementary school to university unable to master it.