For many people, the beauty of Luxembourg is that it is a small city where you don’t have to travel far to get to school, to work, or to enjoy the facilities a city has to offer. Parents and children at Lux I have that option. Those at Lux II don’t. Lux I parents can have lunch at work with their children. Lux II parents cannot. As the months wear on, Lux II parents wonder why they have been singled out for the commuter belt simply because of the language they speak. In detail after detail, life for Lux II families has been made as unworkable as possible. Children at the garderie there cannot even benefit from supervised navettes or school buses in the morning, since the CPE staff is not instructed to wait for them at the bus stop, in the way that nursery or primary teachers are.
For many Lux II parents, the lack of convenience and support in their daily routines has become increasingly frustrating. Unlike Lux I parents, they are unable to have lunch with their children at work and feel excluded from the close-knit community that proximity brings. As time goes on, the differences in treatment between Lux I and Lux II families become more apparent and the sense of being targeted based on language becomes more pronounced. The challenges faced by Lux II families permeate various aspects of their lives, making their daily routines feel difficult and unmanageable. Even simple tasks, such as transportation for their children, are complicated by the lack of supervision and support provided by the CPE staff, leaving Lux II parents feeling increasingly isolated and excluded.
This is why those parents are now opting to transfer their children to child-centred state and private schools in Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, including the International School, St. Georges and the Vauban. Other private schools, such as Over the Rainbow and Maria Montessouri are expanding in order to cater for the exodus of those Lux II parents with young children. One consequence of this is that Lux II is increasingly a ghetto for those nationalities who do not have public or private alternatives for education in their national language. It is fast establishing itself as an undesirable facility for lower paid EU staff from the south east of Europe and Category II and III pupils, for whom it is cheaper than the private schools.
The multiple layers of discrimination and national resentment developing at Lux II make it a concrete monument to everything the EU was supposed to be against.