My grandma never learned French even though she lived there. Which serves the French damn right for having a policy of illiteracy in colonial Algeria. My grandma taught herself how to read and write in her old age. And you can bet that it wasn’t French that she taught herself how to read and write. My inspiration.

Tl;dr maybe if host European countries want the elders to learn their language they shouldn’t have prevented literacy for thise same elders.