06/02/2026
Why learning French is so important for our children…interesting read 🤔
Primary schools are being urged to introduce French – the mother tongue of our “nearest EU neighbour” – when foreign languages are rolled out on the curriculum over the coming year.
The French Ambassador to Ireland, Céline Place, said her embassy was helping schools by facilitating teachers who wanted to travel to France and by placing 90 French-language assistants in Irish classrooms across the country.
The Department of Education will begin rolling out a plan to introduce foreign languages to all primary schools over the next five years.
“We see it as a big opportunity to keep the relationship between the two countries lively and real,” Ms Place told the Irish Independent.
“We are your neighbour. We are a big market. People have a good image of Irish people in France. So there would be a lot of opportunities for Irish students to find jobs in France,” she said.
She said French was used among the Defence Forces and was a useful language for soldiers deployed in Lebanon. There is also a spike in interest among civil servants in the language, ahead of Ireland’s EU presidency in the second half of this year.
Since Brexit, France is Ireland’s geographically closest neighbour in the EU and there has been growing co-operation in many areas
