Switzerland: "At school we learn French then after school we unlearn French"

ParistoBeijing.blogspot.com, 3rd May, 2007, about people in Basel:

I sat with three locals who bought me beers while I ate Ross (Horse) steak and chips cooked by an expert Austrian chef. They talked of their lives in Basel, the great social structure, their dependence on the Rhine for work and of their travels in their youth. They also gave my an explanation of why they speak perfect Italian and excellent English rather than French despite the proximity - "You see the french: they make noises like frog, they eat frog, they are frog... We don't like the frog. At school we learn French then after school we unlearn French."