La minorité polonaise ou la préhistoire des enseignements langues et cultures d’origines en France (1919–1939)

Abstract

In 1919, France and Poland signed a Convention on emigration/immigration in order to expedite the sending of Polish workers to France. No clause in this document provided for the schooling of Polish children. French employers and Polish workers then set up a Polish-speaking education programme. With a view to possibly and soon returning to their homeland, maintaining Polish identity was necessary and entailed that people learn their native language, but also all about Poland’s history and geography. Faced with the creation of these “Polish classes”, several government circulars were published in the 1920s to regulate these teachings and authorise foreign instructors, thus infringing the principle of non-differentiation of children educated under the French Republican school system. When studying this issue of Polish lessons taught in France between 1919 and 1939, it is interesting to see how the Polish minority held a vital (and enduring) role in the establishment of the Native Languages and Cultures education programme in France (the ELCO, still currently at the heart of a debate).