More articles on the French-American class:

                                              With Jane Byrne, Mayor of Chicago

First French show presented in America: Cedar Rapids / Sèvres 1977. The French children children shared their spectacle with a class of Indians children coming from a nearby reservation! Quite an evening for the French children to remember!!

Spectacle in Medina, Ohio given by the French children from Noisy le Roi, a town in back of the Palace of Versailles. 

The spectacle was even given in the streets like here in Lansing Michigan

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After a long flight, the French children always arrived late in the evening in the American school. They were introduced to their American families and went home. A difficult time for them for they were taken away from the school in the dark to go to the American home. Fortunately a dense correspondance between the two families had prepared the French children.

The American coordinator, usually an American motther, indicates to the French child where his American family is waiting for him

Then communication becomes FUN

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What impressed the French children most was size of things: limousines, cars, homes, school, people!

The American families did their utmost for the French children: parties, picnic, visits

The French children were hosted like VIP

No problem for the French children to adjust to the American way of life! But for the American children going to France, it was something else: small appartments, cars, schools not as confortable, rules stricter: all of the American children started with a hard bout of homesickness. But we showed them the advantages of French life but it took time for them to appreciate! However we NEVER sent an Amùerican child home for homesickness: they knew they were in France for three weeks and they had to put up with it!!

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In 1995, I had to face a serious situation: the American counselor from Ann Arbor, Michigan, had received a telephone call from an " unknown person" representing a terrorist group and threatening to hurt the American children. The State Department in Washington DC, the American Embassy and the secret service decided to rapatriate the children under police escort. After communication with Washington, the French authorities, I accompanied the children back home.

The truth was otherwise: the brother of a little girl from whom we had removed the American child for hosting reasons, had decided to organise a hoax to force the American class out of France. He succeded but he was arrested by the Secret Service and incarcerated.

This incident was kept secret by the French government for we had, at the time, more than five hundred American children in the Paris area and that would have been quite a chaotic situation if we had had to repartiate all of them.

The truth is revealed for the first time in France in the book: "Classe franco-américaine".

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