Is foreign language learning mandatory?

Misterpanda (France)

In France we had to choose between English and German as a second language when we were 11 (first year of middle school). If we chose German, then we had to choose English as a third language when we are 13 (third year of middle school). If we chose English then we can choose German or Spanish as a third language (and now more schools offer different options such as Mandarin, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, etc...).

We graduate when we are 18 so everybody studied English for a minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 7 years when graduating. The French baccalaureate (akin to the gaokao) is made in a way that you can totally fail in one subject and still get your baccalaureate if you did well in the other subjects so the weight of English is not that important.