FEARFUL of losing influence in an increasingly anglophone world, French students are to be given “intensive” extra-curricular English lessons during the school holidays, the Guardian has reported.

France’s Education Minister, Xavier Darcos, admitted in early September that not speaking English is a “handicap”. He said that the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had given him a mission to “make France a bilingual nation”.

The French Education Ministry is putting increased funds into English language teaching. Pupils at French lycées (senior high schools) will enroll in three weeks of free “intensive” courses in English during the February and summer holidays. In addition, all collèges (junior high schools) and lycées with low academic achievements have been instructed to offer pupils two hours of extra “support lessons” a week, including English. The French government also plans to encourage “e-learning” by offering English courses on the Internet. The extra-curricular courses will start in 2010.

Eric Charbonnier, an education expert from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, said France had woken up to weaknesses in its language teaching.

It is not the first time that the French government has tried to close the language gap. In 1989, the Education Minister, Lionel Jospin, made two to three hours of English a week mandatory for nine- to 11-year-olds. Later legislation introduced 15 minutes a day of English for pupils from six years old. In 2004, a parliamentary commission recommended that English should be mandatory in all schools. Charbonnier believes the new measures stand a better chance of success than previous reforms.