Bonjour, mes camarades! That, my fellow students, is the sound of the beloved language that was removed from Freedom High School just two years ago. Freedom removed French classes from the curriculum and replaced them with Mandarin Chinese, a language that was supposed to make Freedom students more marketable to colleges and businesses in the “real world.” French students shed a tear when Mademoiselle Cloutier left, cleaned out the classroom and accepted the fact that their beloved language would soon be replaced by Mandarin Chinese. But has this switch done more harm than good for the district as a whole? It seems as though Freedom has put more time, effort and money into two years of Mandarin Chinese than they had in all the years of having French as an elective. Not only did this change warrant hard feelings between the school board and the students, but it also wreaked havoc with the underclassmen who had chosen French as a language. Any underclassmen who chose to take French instead of Spanish that year lost the chance of having four years of the same language, a quality that looks great on college applications. French students protested this from the beginning and desperately tried to save their language. They signed petitions and even spoke in front of the school board in protest. When their valiant efforts failed, they were forced to search for an alternative way to continue their studies. While online courses are available for Japanese, Chinese, Spanish I and Spanish II, they are not available for French. Unless, of course, you are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to take one year of the class. Chinese was supposed to be a class that helped kids become multimillion-dollar business tycoons in their future. But I ask you; when was the last time you saw someone like Donald Trump walking out of Freedom? So, Freedom students; was the switch to Mandarin Chinese worth it? Vous me dites. In other words: you tell me.