Every year, the same problem comes up again and again: students from the Bernat-Etxepare high school in Bayonne demand the right to take the baccalaureate exams in their language: Basque. For this, the latter are ready to rebel and to carry out their composition in Basque and not in French.
Already on January 25, 1,700 demonstrators marched through the streets of Bayonne to demand the right to take exams in Basque in the Basque Country, a shame! Better yet: the parliamentarians, deputies and senators of the Basque Country all support this demand without exception. A manifesto to this effect is circulating among secondary school teachers, both public and private, which has already gathered 175 signatures. The Basque Country Agglomeration and many municipalities have also signed motions to support the request.
But, at the ministry in Paris, nothing is moving and the students have announced that they will write their copy of the mathematics test due in two months in Basque and not in French, regardless of the consequences.
The shadow of Jean-Michel Blanquer
And the worst is that this problem was created from scratch from Paris! Indeed, until 2019, students could write the math test in Basque but in 2019, this tradition was removed by Jean-Michel Blanquer, then Minister of National Education. However, local teachers say they are ready to correct mathematics tests in Basque. Likewise, to pass the final final oral exam in their vernacular language.
In June 2024, around a hundred examiners wore an “aho bizi” badge (literally “living mouth” in Basque) to tell students that they would let them speak in Basque for the grand oral, one of the major tests of the baccalaureate. Around ten students then took the opportunity to do so. Strangely, the following year, no Basque-speaking examiner was retained by the rectorate to administer the Grand Oral tests. A coincidence no doubt…
In 2018, a similar movement affected Brittany where certain Diwan students refused to take the baccalaureate and patent tests other than in the Breton language. The high school students had even formed a collective called “Bak e brezhoneg” (the baccalaureate in Breton).
In immersive establishments in regional languages (Breton, Basque, Occitan, Catalan), students follow all their schooling in their vernacular language but, strangely, take their exams, DNB or baccalaureate, in French!
However, these establishments are regularly cited as being among the best in France with excellent results in tests organized by National Education.
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Breizh-info.com, 2026, dispatches free to copy and distribute subject to mandatory mention and do follow link to the original source.
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