La Cour de Babel

We watched an 'eye-opener' of a film last night in Chinon. La Cour de Babel  was made in 2013. It is a 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary filmed at the Granges-aux-Belles secondary school in the 10th arrondissement in Paris. The title is a play on the Tower of Babel/La Tour de Babel, with cour meaning playground. Cour also sounds like cours which translates as lessons.

The film focusses on a class of new young arrivals. New to France as well as the school.  There were 24 students aged between eleven and fifteen years from 24 different countries. Each spoke a different language and had little or no French. In many instances, the cultures that the students had left were vastly different from each others, as well as from that of the country where the students and their families were planning to start new lives.

The new students were all together in a special 'class of welcome' which ran for twelve months, and aimed to immerse the students in the French language, so they could integrate and move on more easily within the French education system and ultimately embrace the French way of life. 

The film followed the progress of the students from their arrival in the 'class of welcome' to their final day together, before dispersing full-time into the school's regular classes. Filming took place solely within the confines of the classroom where they had their French language classes. Glimpses of the students families only occurred when the parents or in some instances, guardians, came to the school to discuss their child's individual assessment with the French language teacher. These took place at various times during the year. 

The students were very much cocooned in their group. You saw them only in their 'welcome' group, never with other teaching staff or students. The occasional overhead shot of the outdoor playground during breaks was used more to convey the sense of time passing through the seasons, than a measure of how the 'class of welcome' were integrating. 

Some of the parents/ guardians had been in France for a little while before the children arrived. But whether they arrived separately or together, each had a different reason for coming to France. For example, Xin from China had lived with her grandmother there for ten years and hadn't seen her mother at all in that time, until Xin joined her in Paris, where her mother was working in a restaurant. Another girl and her family left Guinea because of their resistance to female circumcision. A Jewish family had been persecuted by a group of Serbian neo-nazis and had to get out. Growing up is difficult enough without such traumas. 

Over the year the director, Julie Bertucelli captured the students conversations, their conflicts, moments of enjoyment, their frank discussions about politics and religion, their impressions of living in France, their struggles and successes. Fortunately she allowed the action to speak for itself. There was no attempt to heighten the drama. Gradually through their shared situation of being outsiders, the students bonded. They were also very well served and supported by the teacher, the wonderful Brigitte Cervoni.  Such patience, such care and understanding, such skill. Highly experienced in teaching French to immigrant children, Brigitte Cervoni has co-authored a book on the subject. 

This film serves a hommage to both the teacher and the students. It also serves as a timely reminder that in our increasingly aggressive and selfish world, we need fair, humaine and welcoming immigration policies.