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French in the Maghreb
French arrived in North Africa with colonization, in Algeria from 1830 and under the protectorates in Tunisia and Morocco, and it stayed after independence in the 1950s and 1960s. Today Arabic and Tamazight (Berber) are the official languages of Morocco, but French remains widely used in business, higher education, science and parts of the media, and many people move between Moroccan Arabic, called Darija, Standard Arabic, Tamazight and French, depending on the setting. How people feel about French varies enormously with their age, region, schooling and social background, and it is the subject of lively public debate in all three countries, including about which language should be used to teach which subjects. For some it is simply a useful language among others; for some it is linked to social advantage; for others it carries the memory of colonial rule. The Algerian writer Kateb Yacine, who wrote in French, famously called the language a butin de guerre, spoils of war: something taken and kept, on one's own terms. As with any personal testimony, Leïla speaks for herself. A sociolinguist collects many such voices precisely because no single one can stand for a whole country.