properly learn four of five languages other than their own. But, priority should be given to languages which allow us to communicate with other Europeans...German, English, Spanish, Dutch in the northern part of France, Italian in the south-eastern...this is also the reason for the hostility to regional languages: there are better uses for public money.

It should be noted that we are talking about resources for teaching languages that no one living, in the main, has spoken for now a couple of generations, unlike say Catalan or Basque. Regional living languages are great...it's just that there aren't really any here in France anymore, and that's been true for 50 years, no matter how much has been spent rehabilitating and teaching them.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill