“The purpose of public education and of public dollars going into education,” he said after a roundtable on July 26, “is to ensure that people who need to hire people to do work actually have the skills necessary.”

Bevin has notoriously been opposed to public education instruction in the humanities. In 2016, he reduced state funds allocated to colleges and universities by $18 million and specifically recommended teaching STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] subjects, “things that will produce the kind of skills, the kind of abilities to be useful citizens.” He added that “anyone who wants to study French literature can do so, but they won’t be subsidized by the taxpayer.”

The Consul General of France in Chicago, Guillaume Lacroix, immediately took to Twitter to rebut the governor and highlighted the importance of French language in the trade relations between France and Kentucky: