The French girl pretended to be Aryan in order to escape certain death at the concentration camps. In addition to pretending to be Aryan, she also refrained from speaking German. In all, what she was trying to do was to disguise her Jewish heritage from the guards.
If the French girl had spoken German, she would have given away her lack of an authentic German accent. The guards would have suspected from her diction that she was Jewish. So, to be safe, she spoke French.
The only time the French girl spoke in German was after Elie was brutally beaten by Idek. According to Elie, the French girl tried to comfort him after the horrible abuse he suffered at Idek's hands. She gave Elie a crust of bread and stared at him for a long time before she spoke to him in almost perfect German.
Years later, Elie happened to come across the French girl in the Metro in France. She did not recognize Elie initially, but he reminded her about working in an electrical parts warehouse during the war. Upon hearing this, the French girl confessed to Elie what he already knew: that she was Jewish and that she took careful pains to portray herself as Aryan as a means of self-preservation.
The French girl also admitted that it was unwise of her to speak to Elie in German at the time. However, she did so because she sensed that he would never betray her.
Elie recalls working next to a French woman in a warehouse during the Holocaust. Elie mentions that he thought she looked Jewish but could pass as Aryan. One day, Idek severely beats Elie, and he ends up crawling into a corner, where the young French woman consoles him by encouraging him to bite his tongue and save his anger for another day. Years later, Elie runs into the French woman in Paris. Elie ends up inviting her to a cafe, and they spend the evening reminiscing. Before leaving, the French woman tells Elie that she is indeed Jewish and tried to pass as Aryan during the Occupation. She even had false papers to confirm that she was Aryan, which is why she was deported to a forced labor unit instead of a concentration camp.
The reason she pretended to be Aryan was to avoid being sent to the dangerous, inhumane concentration/death camps, which were reserved for the Jews. She also avoided speaking German, which would arouse suspicion and reveal that she was Jewish.
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