Several hundred students, parents and teachers gathered on the forecourt of Human Rights, Monday in Bordeaux, to claim the right of middle and high school students to take all their exams in the Basque language.
“We would like the college certificate to be corrected in Basque, and also the baccalaureate”, explains Chantal Oyhamburu, teacher and parent of a 49-year-old student. “It’s very important, it’s our identity, it’s our culture, we have been defending it since we were very young and we will always defend it”, abounds Maika Brust, 28-year-old PE teacher at Bernat high school. Etxepare in Bayonne. About 4,200 pupils of all levels, distributed in 38 public and private schools, are currently being taught in Basque, according to the Seaska federation.
The mayor of Bordeaux “attached to the diversity of languages”
“After having completed all the learning in Basque, it is essential that the exams validating these studies, the Brevet as well as the Bac, can be taken in the Basque language, so that its teaching is recognized”, considers its director, Hur Gorostiaga.
The demonstrators denounce the last reform of the baccalaureate, in 2017, which removed the possibility of taking certain tests – history-geography and mathematics – in the Basque language. The same goes for the patent: “we have a veto from the ministry on the science test”, corrected by non-Basque-speaking correctors, deplores Peio Jorajuria, 43, president of Seaska.
The EELV mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic, originally from the Basque Country, came to support the demonstrators. “I am really attached to the diversity of languages, cultures in the world, these assets essential to the survival of peoples,” he said.