> I strongly disagree with Ezio's argumentation here. If Kate and Firefox
> are internationalized, IDLE can very well be internationalized too.

The target is different though (especially the target of Firefox).  Kate might be used mainly by developers, but it's also used by non-developers and it's probably translated also because all the KDE programs are.  Mercurial would be a better example against my point.

The problem is that the students don't understand English menus (among a number of other English things).  The two possible solutions are:
1) translate the menus to e.g. French so that the students can understand them;
2) teach enough English to the students to understand the menus.

The first solution might make students' life a bit easier at first, but it's just a short-term solution -- they will still have to deal with English in a number of other places (keywords, functions, modules, error messages, documentation).
The second solution adds a bit more overhead at first, but that will pay off pretty soon.  It also stems from the assumption that learning English is something that they will have to do (especially if they want to become developers).

I'm not strongly opposed to internationalize IDLE.  If people think that it's a good idea and are willing to invest their time doing it, I'm not going to stop them, but I reckon that this might cause a few problems whose cost, IMHO, outweighs the aforementioned short-term advantage.