Sharjah24 - AFP: Algerian primary schools have scrambled to introduce English lessons, in a move critics say was rushed but others hope could be a coup de grace against the language of former occupier France.
Language is a sensitive topic in the North African country, where French is still widely spoken six decades after independence that followed 132 years of colonial rule and a gruelling eight-year war.
"The French language is war booty, but English is the international language," President Abdelmadjid Tebboune told journalists in July.
Only weeks earlier, he had ordered the education ministry to introduce English into primary school curricula by the new term, which started on September 21.
This was the first stage in a broader plan to boost English tuition in the coming years.
The status of French has been a hotly debated issue for decades in Algeria, which has only Arabic and the Berbers' Tamazight as official languages.
French infuses public life, is used for teaching science and business, and is spoken by millions of diaspora Algerians, particularly in France.
Yet it also evokes memories of colonial rule.
"I want to drop the language of the coloniser and adopt the language used worldwide," said Hacene, the father of a primary pupil in the capital Algiers.
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