the mystery solved
So, it turns out that Leah's mystery has a simple, logical explanation: folks sometimes speak French in Lebanon. In fact, as a site about francophone countries tells us, Lebanon is a 'member state of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)'. 'Although French is not an official language in... Lebanon, it is widely used in literature and films.' Who knew?!
Along with Lebanon, the site I read lists Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt as the Arabic members of the Francophony; the first three are less suprising, but I wouldn't have guessed Egypt. Although, now that I think about it, I recall that Napoleon did spend spend a little bit of time there. So maybe there's some sense to it all in the end. In any case, it's nice to know that NPR isn't scamming us and that Leah isn't going crazy and hearing things.