Econ_Sep_22

The Economist

September 22nd 2018

Europe 49

Germany

Over, not out

TWAS supposed to be a face-saving

measure to stop the coalition govern-

ment collapsing. Instead there is outrage.

Hans-GeorgMaassen (pictured) was

removed fromhis role as Germany’s

head of domestic intelligence thisweek

over allegations that he had downplayed

right-wing extremist violence. But rather

than being sacked, he has been given a

pay rise and a promotion.

MrMaassen sparked a national row

when he called into question a video

showing foreign-looking people being

chased by amob after the killing of a

Germanman, allegedly by asylum-

seekers, in the easternGerman city of

Chemnitz. The spy chief suggested the

videomight be fake, hinting at media

manipulation to distract from the Chem-

nitz killing. He said therewas no infor-

mation about xenophobic assaults,

despite reliable eyewitness reports and

police investigations into such cases.

Thiswas an affront to his boss, Angela

Merkel, the chancellor, who had con-

demned the anti-migrant violence in

Chemnitz andwhose refugee policy he

openly disagreeswith. MrsMerkel’s

Social Democratic coalition partners, the

SPD

, called for him to be sacked. Her

conservative interiorminister, Horst

Seehofer, immediately sidedwithMr

Maassen, setting the scene for yet anoth-

er coalition crisis in Berlin. Neither side

could backdown, fearing a backlash

from their supporters. But sticking to

their guns risked bringing down the

government. FindingMrMaassen anoth-

er jobwas theway out.

Everyone has been damaged. Mrs

Merkel has lost authority. Mr Seehofer’s

ally has been pushed out, implying a

degree of guilt. But the

SPD

has been hit

hardest. Partymembers believe their

leaders are sacrificing left-wing values in

another coalitionwithMrsMerkel’s

conservative bloc to cling on to power.

This is not the first time that Mr Maas-

sen has been accused of overstepping his

brief. He is accused of close links with the

right-wing populist Alternative for Ger-

many party, including allegedly advising

themon how to avoid surveillance. But

the row is about more than just MrMaas-

sen. He is a symbol for the split running

throughGermany, and its government,

overmigration. Another coalition crisis

may have been averted, but that division

has not gone away.

BERLIN

Acontroversial spychief gets a promotion

The spy who stayed in the warm

RABIC is a “perfect, smooth and rich

language”, wrote Ernest Renan, a 19th-

century French thinker, who praised its

“extensive vocabulary, the accuracy of its

meanings and the beautiful logic of its

structures”. Today Arabic is considered the

second-most-spoken language in France,

and is the source of rich street slang. An es-

timated 5m French citizens have family

roots in the Arab world, mainly in Algeria,

Morocco and Tunisia. Yet the teaching of

the language in schools is regarded in

many quarters as suspect, if not danger-

ous. Amere 13,000 French pupils study Ar-

abic—just 0.2% of all secondary-school stu-

dentswho take a second language.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of

French pupils choose English as their first

foreign language, with fully 5.5mpupils en-

rolled in classes in secondary school. Al-

though German was once the traditional

second choice, it has long been overtaken

by Spanish. The fastest-growing option in

France is now Chinese. The number of its

students has tripled, though admittedly

still to only 39,000, over the past decade.

Today there are three times as many

French pupils studying Chinese as Arabic.

Few French schools offer Arabic at all.

“Why on earth would you want your chil-

dren to learn Arabic?” was the tart re-

sponse to inquiries by one French dip-

lomat, returning to Paris after a spell in an

Arab country.

To counter such views, the education

minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, argued

earlier this month that the teaching of Ara-

bic should be made more widespread. He

says that Arabic ought to be granted “pres-

tige”, he pleaded, “as a very great literary

language”, and studied not only by those

of north African origin. Teaching it in

school, Mr Blanquer argued, could also be

a way of controlling how it is taught. Most

Arabic classes currently take place beyond

the reach of schools inspectors, in

mosques or Koranic classrooms. A new re-

port by Hakim El Karoui for the Institut

Montaigne, a liberal think-tank, recom-

mends an increase inofficial Arabic classes

as a means of curbing hard-line Islamist

teaching.

Yet Mr Blanquer’s idea has kicked up a

nasty row. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a right-

wing nationalist, called it “the beginning

of the Arabisation of France”. Teaching Ar-

abic in schools, claimed Robert Ménard,

the far-right mayor of Béziers, would her-

ald “the birth of another nation right in the

heart ofFrance”. (People seem lessworried

by the language of the once-hated Anglo-

Saxons.) There has been much dark mut-

tering about the prospect of teachers in

headscarves, which are banned in state

schools under French law. LouisAliot, a far-

right deputy and partner ofMarine Le Pen,

condemned the proposal as part of an

“ideology of submission”.

Even the mainstream right has voiced

outrage. Arabic, declared an editorial in

Figaro

magazine, “is not a language like any

other” but “a weapon used by those who

want to separate Muslims from the rest of

the French community”. The point could

be made the other way around. Unless

French schools help to take teaching of Ar-

abic out of the hands of imams and into

the classroom, Arabic will remain a badge

of religion rather than a respected world

language like any other.

Teaching Arabic in France

Word games

PARIS

Some peoplewill playpoliticswith

anything