"RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT 49 as the Act of 24th July 1961 has suppressed the linguistic part of the population census. "Although relatively better" than that of Alsemberg and Beersel, the status of Kraainem represents the "height of absurdity" for it aims at the "protection" of a French-speaking majority, not a minority. This protection, moreover, is still highly insufficient; it merely provides "facilities of little value", wrongly described as "large concessions". First, Section 7 (3) (B) of the Act of 2nd August 1963 concerns only nursery and primary education; the secondary and technical schools at Wemmel, Wezembeek-Oppem and Rhode-St. Genèse follow the Flemish unilingual regime, as would those which would be opened at Kraainem, Drogenbos and Linkebeek. Even in the sphere of nursery and primary education, Section 7 (3) (B) is not satisfactory: it adopts the criterion of the maternal or usual language, which does not fully ensure freedom of choice for the parents and the severity of which is increased by a strict linguistic control. Moreover, local authorities often "drag their feet" in the opening of French classes in the six communes. Further still, Article 7 (3) (B) requires, for those classes, the teaching of Dutch for four hours a week in the second form at the primary level and eight hours in the third and fourth forms; "teaching of the second language" thus "takes up more time" than that of the first language, "since only six hours of French" are "foreseen in Belgian primary school curricula". This situation is the more "extraordinary" as teaching of French in the Dutch classes at Kraainem is optional (Section 7 (3) (A) of the Act of 2nd August 1963). In short, the Belgian Parliament is seeking to make the children "comply" with "the demands of the ground". Compelled to respect "certain acquired rights which are strikingly obvious and of great importance", it tolerates them only "provisionally" in order to "do away with them as soon as possible". In the final analysis, the French classes in Kraainem are nothing but "instruments of depersonalisation", "intensive transmutation classes". Accordingly the Applicants refuse to send their children to them; to benefit from "a decent education in French", the latter make "long and expensive daily journeys to one of the 19 communes of Brussels", at the cost of "disruption in their private and family life" and in that of their parents. 3. Arguments presented before the Court by the Belgian Government and by the Commission 17. Before the Commission, the Belgian Government maintained that the linguistic status in education of Kraainem infringes none of the three Articles (P1-2, art. 8, art. 14) invoked. While its principal argument was that the Articles were totally inapplicable (cf. supra), it presented several subsidiary arguments. It observed in substance, that the linguistic control does not operate with the arbitrary strictness alleged by the Applicants, that the French classes at Kraainem in no way constitute instruments of