Every Sunday, parents in this working-class neighborhood just north of Paris bring their children to a small school operated by the local mosque. Half of the three-hour lesson is devoted to learning Arabic, the other half to learning the Quran.

Now President Emmanuel Macron’s government is considering giving parents a secular alternative to that intertwining of Arabic and Islam by prodding more of France’s public schools to offer children as young as age 6 Arabic lessons—without religious content.