Chirac contre l'anglais

There is something a little unhealthy about the way that the English-speaking world loves hearing about France's struggle to fend off la langue de Shakespeare. Every newspaper story on the subject guarantees chortles at breakfast tables from Sydney to Sidcup. The field is rich, what with language quotas in broadcasting and the 1994 law requiring French-only communications in business and advertising. That law, usually observed in the breach like so many French rules, produced its first conviction this month when a Versailles court  fined a General Electric subsidiary for issuing its staff with technical manuals only in English. It may be silly to try to legislate language, but, gloating aside, why should a country not seek ways to promote its language and the ideas that it conveys? Quebec has managed to keep its French alive that way.

Often, though, the guardians of Gallic linguistic purity are their own worst enemies and no-one sets himself up better for mockery than Jacques Chirac.

On Thursday, the President stormed out of a European summit in Brussels, taking two ministers with him -- because a Frenchman had begun addressing the session in English. The scene was piquant because the speaker was Ernest-Antoine Seillière, former chief of MEDEF, the French business association, who now heads the Europe-wide version (UNICE). Baron Seillière, a satanic figure in the folklore of France's anti-capitalist masses, was lecturing the 25 leaders on the evils of le patriotisme économique, the doctrine devised by Dominique de Villepin to justify France's current bout of industrial protectionism. That was enough cause alone to infuriate Chirac, but doing it in English was a provocation beyond his endurance. Seillière explained that he would use English because it is the language of business. It is also of course the common language among all but two or three of the 25 EU leaders.

The incident, only briefly reported in France, could be read as a fine example of France's Quixotic battle against reality. In truth, though, it said more about the way that Chirac and the governing classes are out of touch with much of their own the country. The resistance to English has long ago faded among the younger generation and the world of business and technology. Look at the French readers who join in the chat on this blog.

Older café waiters may still respond to English-only customers with a withering blast of French, but many deal with non-French patrons in English -- whether they are Chinese, Spanish or whatever. Few of the younger generation subscribe to Chirac's view -- which he expressed on a visit to Vietnam two years ago -- that English is an inferior means of communication. I wonder how many older French accept the Chirac idea that French is in danger of being over-run in a universal battle to shape human civilisation.

The trouble is the way that Chirac (an English speaker) and his predecessor Francois Mitterrand (who spoke no English)  turned the language into an often comic crusade in the name of chauvinism (good French word). Chirac long ago banned his ministers from using English abroad. I have witnessed absurd moments at summits when ministers chat away in English and switch into French when the boss appears and then back into English when he passes.  The same Thierry Breton, Finance Minister, who walked out with Chirac on Thursday, happily used English at a lunch for reporters in his Paris ministry on Wednesday. 

For Chirac -- and even more for the poet de Villepin -- the language is the sacred essence of Frenchness, to be defended at all costs. This means hundreds of millions of tax-payers' euros per annum in the form of subsidies. These go to la francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations, which by the way includes Bulgaria, and to such extravagances as the Arte Franco-German television channel and Chirac's new baby, the CII, or Chaîne d'Information Internationale (CII). This is the "French CNN" which Chirac commanded in the heat of the Iraq crisis to combat the global power of the American and British news networks. Chirac has given the CII, which is supposed to go on the air by the end of this year, the grand mission of "bearing everywhere French values and France's vision of the world". The state-run channel was given another boost by the "caricatural reporting" by les Anglo-Saxons of France's riots last autumn.  The gloating outside France was therefore inevitable when the CII's bosses suggested this month that le regard français sur le monde may be mainly broadcast.... in English. 

The Paris international book fair, which has just closed, made la francophonie its theme for this year, which is perfectly reasonable. Last year Russian had the honour. To encourage French-language writing, 40 authors kept up a daily forum around an "arbre à palabres"  (chatter tree) in the show's pavilion of honour.

Chirac of course weighed in with the usual excess. "Defending la francophonie means defending a certain idea of culture, of the future, of that part of the universal which has always been born by France," he told the salon. The French language enabled everyone who used it to "express in the same language all the nuances of the human experience."  Embattled French defenders might note that all the key words in that sentence came to English from French or its Latin ancestor. (...expriment, dans une même langue, toutes les nuances de l'expérience humaine).  The President could also not resist his usual swipe at English. "Nothing would be worse for culture and civilisation than the evolution towards linguistic uniformity," he told the book fair.

UPDATE: Chirac has explained his Brussels beau geste on behalf of the language today. "I was profoundly shocked to see a Frenchman express himself in English at the (EU) Council table. That's why the French delegation and myself walked out rather than listen to that."

Fighting to keep the place of French was a vital cause, he said.  "It is not just national interest, it is in the interest of culture and the dialogue of cultures. You cannot build the world of the future on just one language and, hence one culture."

French reaction has varied, judging by the chatter around Paris. Gaullist MPs have praised Chirac's grand act in defence of the language while Le Monde mocked him in a front page cartoon. Some Socialist MPs said they were appalled that the head of state was making a fool of himself  while his country was teetering on the edge of revolt.      

Comments

[john chappell]

Hooray for French -

Hello Mr Bremner,

Firstly my email address ignores the French concept of Libérte!
But let it not be said that I am not displaying my ardent support of French:

Here goes - despite a specific concern that my case, described below could end up like the film of the title -
'LOST IN TRANSLATION'

British, based in Paris for coming up to 10 years, I am
personally ‘one’ of the salaried men of France that has
something good to say about the country's recipe of French / English and 'Franglais'
In a previous management position - the working language was English. However I now take action and need to have the documentation translated into French.
Since I am in France, there is the when 'in Rome principle' and for me I see the code de travail, and for that I hopefully, look forward to some protection etc –
The fact that some of the meaning - will be 'lost in translation' is not the point!
All language has a limitation, and the fact there is a 'Translation cost' is not the least of my concerns.
I had a dispute which, thankfully for me will depend more on French law protections, that enshrines some 'liberte' measures in an employee's contract.

The French way of setting out specific definitions (the Written constitution etc ) and that epitiomised in ‘Le Code de
Travail’ and also in penal, or criminal code law, is a great quality.
I am perfectly content to see that they define a workplace concept called 'Harcéllement Moral !
It’s known as HM – and of course would say that it’s just
another ‘Style of Management.’

My point of view is given below. Perhaps your web-blog could
benefit from a bit more of a dosage on the Expats living in France, coming to see the benefits in the prescriptive laws etc - I agree that in all languages it is also easy finding the ‘pitfalls’, the prolems of expression across cultures !!

The grass isn’t a whole lot greener etc – No Peter Mayle, Provence etc. The best thing is to keep french alive, especially in areas where the law, has the ultimate definition and where countries are loathe to give in to language constraints.
I have made a summary below -

Best Regards

John CHAPPELL

Tribunal Dispute –

Have a Tribunal judgment coming up in Paris in a little over
3 months time. These are ‘open audience’ in nature. The
magistrates sitting comprise, 2 union member and 2 employee
Prud’Hommal characters and the council itself is divided
into sections (Bi-centenary of the Conseil de Prud’Hommes
was just celebrated last weekend, actually)
Napoleonic in functioning – you bet ! Long, complicated and
full of all the French discipline that -----well I can’t say
any more that in theory I have a case that will come up in
July, but my experience so far (and I don’t speak of a track
record), is that they are pretty intense affairs -
Apparently in France there are around 170,000 cases brought
a year (25% concerning job related – unfair dismissal cases
etc).

My Story of Interest for your Web-blog -

Perhaps it collides with such things as world cup euphoria,
but my euphoria is to have a dossier === or as they say
‘conclusions’ delivered by my lawyer in a ‘jugement’ that
takes around 20 minutes. There is some deliberation and then
the verdict can be passed – or communicated by letter (of
course AR).

Perhaps, you feel that the readership of the ‘The Times’
will have more than enough in the context of the current
difficulties faced by labour market rigidities - and efforts
to build in some flexibilities, CPE, CNE, etc
But I believe that your UK based and French based expat
persons would find my case story particularly interesting in
so far as I am that ‘class’ that is so haphazardly name in
France as ‘Cadre’ -

Cadre -

That in itself is something worth explaining, not least
because I was a ‘Cadre’ in a company that had a
‘representative office’- using another concept that Jacques
Chirac would probably disprove of – the Regus –(English
founded and world’s largest) office system. What is more I
am not even in a quarrel with a French based company, my
ex-company was based in Germany ! (and it shows the limits
that you can exercise your rights under the European Union
etc, who is accountable for clearing up the mess of the one
man in the street situation etc - British in France,
working for a German subsidiary of a South Korean
conglomerate – at the heart of a European project that goes
from worse to worse -

Does it sound of interest?

If so, I would like to give you – well in advance the date
set by the Tribunal to hear my case, for diary purposes I
think it’s the weekend finale of the action in Germany,
namely Friday 7th July.
The location of the tribunal is in Paris 10, not far from
Canal St Martin, 27 rue Louis Blanc, 75010 – The
deliberations start at 13.00 (the case is amalgamated in a
family of other cases (10 in all), and proceedings are called –
No formal ID is needed to enter etc.

Best regards

John CHAPPELL

[Elspeth G]

I was surprised to read that Jaques Chirac speaks English at all! (I've lived in France for 13 years)

The French are so contradictory about the use of the English language. On the one hand, they don't like the anglo-saxization of the business world, on the other they can't resist the latest franglais jargon like: 'Tu peux me forwarder le mél?'

I think the Quebequois have got it right. They speak both languages properly and fluently, but don't mix them up.

[Sarah]

You're right, it is a tad unhealthy, the glee with which we greet every new sign of desperation before the might of the English language, but then, it's harmless, and mockery does flow in both directions across the Channel and Atlantic. The French feel superior in many areas (cooking, haute couture, wine), and do not hesitate to flaunt their superiority at opportune moments, so I have no compunction about the English-speaking world taking pleasure in the ridiculous stances taken by the French president in his crusade against English. Mockery is one of those human characteristics which is integral in the give and take of interaction among equals in democracy.

[Rosa Pammer]

I am all in favour of the use of English in business, but perhaps M.Seillière needs to improve his lobbying skills. Getting one of the three (four if you include Italy, five if you include Spain) most important people in the room to walk out is not a sign of excellence in this area.

French is the language in which to make ideas out of reality, German to make reality out of ideas and English the language of communication.

[Peter Carrington]

Poor old Jacques can be forgiven for returning to the subject of fighting off the incoming tide of English speaking, it has to be one of the few remaining subjects that he feels comfortable expounding on. Just about everything he touches turns to sand these days, his legacy is deeply threatened, his hand picked successor is making a fool of himself fighting the wrong battle at the wrong time in a thoroughly inept manner and the only person who seems to be winning is the hated ‘petit Nicolas’. A swift dose of Anglo-Saxon bashing and French language defending must seem like a soothing balm…..

Joking aside, you make some good points that I would echo. The young people and the business community don’t feel threatened by English but, in my experience, embrace it openly. It’s a tool to them and one they are happy to use without fearing that doing so undermines their own language or national dignity. That said, I think that the arrogance with which native English speakers all too often assume that everyone can/should talk their language is deeply offensive and calculated to provoke.

For the older generation the discomfort they have for extensive exposure to English is often simply fear of sounding stupid or foolish. They did not get the language teaching that today’s generations get and were educated in a system that placed extreme emphasis on good grammar, diction and writing. The result is that they are ashamed of their English and avoid using it. By way of example, my closest friends are 8 French couples of my (late 50’s) age. All are university educated, well travelled and culturally broadminded people. Virtually all of them can understand spoken English more or less well and half are quite happy to watch an English film in VO but only one of the 16 is happy talking in English. Its not that they can’t, just that they don’t. By contrast every one of the 20 children this group has – all between 20 and 30 – is perfectly willing and able to talk English, with varying degrees of fluency, whenever the occasion requires. Neither group, the children nor their parents, is approaching the issue from a language purity, government edict or anti Anglo-Saxon perspective.

Wasting taxpayers money promoting French is not the worst sin in the world, it does no harm and it provides employment for quite a few literature graduates who would find other work hard to get, but it won’t change anything. Language is a living, evolving entity, today’s French is not (except in Canada!) the French of the revolution and tomorrows French will different again. Nothing can stop that, certainly not the posturing of an old beaten man.

Smug native English speakers might also like to pause to remember that fully 25% of English words are French in origin and its often the best, most descriptive words for an item or activity that have French roots.

[Sandrine]

Chirac exaggerated, for sure. But you seem very ironic and a bit arrogant when you speak about our language and yours.

I don't know why Chirac made all this hubbub, but you can also say to your readers that in Brussels there's a big service of translation, and French is definitely one of the official languages of the EU, so why didn't this man use his own language to make his speech ? There would be no problem for sure... I even wonder if you would have posted something here if only he had spoken in French !

[all]

Il convient de dire "le baron" Ernest-Antoine Seillière, comme sur France 3 ; un patron noble français qui parle anglais. Horrible.

[john]

Just seems to me to make him look like a purile child. A rather pathetic reaction; whatever happened to freedom of speech? :)

[Deirdre]

Philology time; yes English is a hybrid language, partly Teutonic, partly Romance (ie like French derived from Latin). So a French root or cognate word can be found in many English utterances. 'Best and most descriptive', really? 'Smug' as it happens is derived from low german, Mr Carrington.
English has absorbed a vast vocabulary from other languages. 'Hobson Jobson' tells us how much we have absorbed from Indian languages.

[rupert smith]

To be honest, I think this debate misses the most significant point of the story: Chirac walked out of a presentation concerning the future of Europe.

Amusing though it is, the language issue is comparatively irrelevant. What is relevant is that Chirac has such ill-regard for progress in Europe that he can absent himself to make a 'dramatic' gesture.

[Mary Chin]

As an American who lived in France for 8 years and now lives in Montreal, I'm seeing a lot more nuances to the French/English tug of war on the international level than I expected. So far, I have not noted that Quebeckers are really bilingual. They are usually francophones with an intermediate command of English. Quebec French has evolved in its own way and direction, and like American English, now has a slightly different but no less valid logic, vocabulary and grammar. I am learning a different version of French than the one I used in France, and that's quite acceptable. However, the English I hear and read is often awkward and not related to any official English. Terms like "salvor of wreck" (seen in the Customs Office) and "worldy income" (heard from a Quebec revenue representative) give an idea of Quebec bilingualism.

On the other hand, French Quebeckers are as passionate about francophonie as the French, perhaps even more so. I have sensed more anxiety here about preserving French culture and language than when living in France. My French friends and colleagues felt quite secure about living and speaking their language, and bemoaned their difficulties in learning foreign languages. Even diplomats at UNESCO often make a point of delivering their speeches in English, French and even a third language, often in succession.

[Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène]

March 24, 2006



Dear Sir,


Let me be one of the French readers who join in on this ``blog''.

The question at stake here is not whether the French language will disappear, the question is whether all languages but English will regress to kitchen or bedroom languages, some unwritten Mamelosche or Schwytzertütsch.

In the seventies, in the learned world, there were at least four powerful languages (French, English, German, Russian). In the name of efficiency, we are now reduced to one.

Once upon a time, when French and German philosophers met to confront their views on Hegel, each speaker used his own, perfectly mastered language and the talks were understood by the other participants in the meeting. Nowadays people's exchanges are in often poor English. When the English of speakers will become acceptable, then their own language will have receded to kitchen language, as we may witness for many once important languages of the Indian subcontinent.

In the name of efficiency, in the whole world, the wealthy or learned people will send their children to bilingual schools or directly to full-English speaking schools. Laziness or snobism helping, these youngsters will speak English between themselves, they will read English novels, they will write English novels (again, observe the situation in India). Business coming to the rescue of laziness, when a young writer will submit a text to a Publisher, he or she will be told that only an English version is acceptable, the market being too small for a text written in Tamil, French etc.

I am a mathematician and happen to be interested in languages. In my field, in the seventies there were four official languages. For someone who knows an indoeuropean language, a few months are enough to learn enough of another indoeuropean language to read technical papers. In my field, the Germans, more sympathetic to the anglosaxon world than the French are, gave up first. The fall of the Berlin wall and the ensuing situation in Russia resulted in massive emigration of the Russian scientists, who perfectly happily gave up on their rich language. The French, having been brought up on Astérix, have long resisted, and a couple of us still resist.

Any linguist will tell you that languages are dying out by numbers. This is just as bad as global warming -- and the causes for both are presumably the same. My belief is that the resistance of the big languages to English can serve as a model and help save other languages.

You cannot resist the combined power of laziness and big money by issuing laws or complaining in ``blogs''. The only way is to set examples. If we are good enough, we can afford to impose our language. This is what a number of my mathematician colleagues and I do, by writing high quality mathematical papers in French, and publishing them in prestigious international Journals, which do accept them (funnily enough, one of the first attempts to try to impose English only in the (pure) mathematics came not from the U.S. but from a ``European Journal of Mathematics'' -- which had to back up quickly). Most of us refuse to give a lecture in English when in France. The many foreign students who come to France to work with us know this, they learn French. I am not ashamed to say that I walked out on a colleague and good friend of mine when he decided to speak in English at a conference held in France. I am proud to say that I lecture in German when in Germany. I also gave some lectures in Russian while in Russia: this required a quite serious effort, something uncommon in today's world, where the motto seems to be : quality does not matter, what we want is to produce and use everything as quickly as possible.

The text of your article is moderate but I must say I feel anglo-saxon haughtiness when I read ``extravagances as the Arte Franco-German television channel''. This is the only reasonable TV channel we have. Just compare their condensed, intelligent, news programme at 7.45 pm with the distended news imposed at 8 on the other main channels. The sempiternal tax-payer argument is not serious. I guess the average tax-payer would be happy if all the taxes went to motorways rather than to culture.

I also notice that you write :

`` The President could also not resist his usual swipe at English. "Nothing would be worse for culture and civilisation than the evolution towards linguistic uniformity," he told the book fair. ''

Your first sentence could be misinterpreted as an introduction to the second one. I hope people can still make the difference between defending the multiplicity of languages and attacking English.

Yours sincerely,


Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène

[Victor Tan]

Rupert Smith, well done! More often than not, one does not see the big picture, as the French say seeing beyond the nose.

It is the Europe of the future that Chirac turned his back to. It is time for the French to be redeemed from this dinosaur!

[Raphaël]

Hi here

Well I shall agree with Sarah ; as a Frenchman working in computer science, I feel ashamed of some desperates measures against english words migrating into french, such as the now famous-and-ridiculous cédérome or mèl (for CD-Rom and e-mail, as you noticed easily) I prefer to argue that if those technology-related words are now well-spread in our language it is because they come from countries that lead and compete high on these very technologies : computer, electronics, Internet, etc.
French has is own contribution of literal french words in other languages. We are all to be blamed to consider the problem the wrong way : we should struggle to regain the upper hand as a leading country and thus french will naturally spread again.

[dave]

Apart from the occasional ridiculous excesses, which give me also much amusement, I have a lot of sympathy for Chirac. Baron Seillère is just another plutocrat, and we all know already what THEY want.

A far more constructive way for Chirac to use his time would be to recognise that the Cold War is over, DUH !, and disband NATO. After all who now needs an American military bridgehead in europe?

One of the excellent reasons for rejecting the Constitution was that Tony Blair fought to have NATO enshrined in it.I do not know any people who want to see the United States of Euromerica, because the anglosaxon founders have a lengthening history of starting disastrous wars and dragging others along.

I"m for a multi-polar world, with lots of languages, and Arte IS by far the most consistently adult TV here.

[Eliot Bridge]

Jean-Louis Colliot-Thlne shouldn't worry so much about "quality". Research universities in the US are thronged with foreign students and faculty, from absolutely everywhere. French, English, German, and Russian wouldn't even scratch the surface. For convenience, they do everything in (frequently execrable) English. You see the same thing in technology companies.

And we win more Nobel prizes, take out more patents, and invent more stupid (but profitable!) widgets that go "beep", than the rest of the world combined.

So I wouldn't worry too much about poor language skills preventing researchers from crunching each other's data. As for Hegel, who gives a damn about Hegel? Nobody. What does Hegel tell us that can be turned into a product that customers find useful? Nothing. He's not food and he's not fuel. The hell with him. He's worthless to me.

Seillire was absolutely right: English is the language of business. I always thought franco-obsessive Frenchmen like Chirac were perfectly happy with that. Isn't that what they're rioting about this week? Or was that last week's riot? As Raphaël says above, French won't be the language of business until Frenchmen start dominating the business world. And why should they not try? That's the great thing about capitalism: The more the merrier! Guys like Raphaël will do more to preserve French than an army of French Academies.

Yeah, languages are totally cool. It's a damn shame we don't learn more of them, and a world where everybody spoke the same language would be a claustrophobic bore (though less monstrous than a world where everybody had the same laws). I don't blame Chirac for trying to order the tide back.

But let's be frank here: Making a buck is what really counts. Profit is, like, COOL.

[John Hornsby]

I don't usually have much time for President Chirac but have some sympathy for him in this case. One meets so many English people who come over here, make little if any effort to learn French yet expect French people to be able to converse in English without so much as a prelimary "Parlez-vous anglais?".

[michael robertson]

I wonder if all this bickering over which of the latin derived languages is the language of business will soon look to be irrelevant, in the face of the inexorable rise of China, and Mandarin Chinese, which is the official speak of that country. HELLO!!? Hasn't anyone, (especially in France) noticed how their economy is growing at such a rate that it will dwarf all our european economies in the not too distant future! Ironic, seeing as France was one of the few western european nations to have direct ecomomic and air links with Beijing at a time when China was out in the cold in the 1970s! Are they all going to learn English to conduct their affairs, or are we going to have to learn to speak, and write Mandarin in order to "do business", withthe World's most populous nation?
Whilst I am lead to believe the country with the largest number of English speakers is in fact China, this still represents a tiny fraction of its population, who presumably, like anyone else, would welcome the chance to speak their own Language outside of their own borders. To a Chinese business man, the languages of the EU must appear to be no more then regional dialects, which in their terms, that is actually what they represent! In the UK, in recognition of this emerging reality, some schools are now teaching Mandarin, difficult though it is for us Europeans to learn. I have no axe to grind either way, but you can't help wondering which way this play out in the reamaining years of the 21st Century!

[Nicole TRABAUD]

Why do the Brits and the USAers ,allegedly the champions of liberty and democracy , always find fault with a nation that is determined to speak its own mother tongue and not the pidgin commonly used in the global corporate world ?
A language conveys the cultural identity of a country.
Those American-Indian nations that have survived the Pilgrims'benevolence are those that have preserved their tongues.
The French fight for the respect of minority languages as much as for their own language.They promote their own cinema as well as the cinema of smaller nations. Their message is universal and not unilateral . A language is a key to understanding the world , the more languages, the richer our
perception of its complexities : I speak both French and English and depending on what I need to say I will resort either to French or English. Am I the poorer for it ?
Could bigotry or envy account for so much spite ? Why inveigh against us front pages after front pages ? Are you that insecure when it comes to multilateralism ?
Let the British media bash the French for speaking French, it's a national sport they have to sell paper ,and let's welcome those hundreds of Brits that settle in , say,Limousin and enjoy the sheer delight of seeing the world through the magnifying lens of the French language and culture.
What must be hard for a British correpondent in Paris is to understand that even though demonstrators are protesting M.Chirac's government's social reforms , a poll shows that a majority of the French nevertheless support his protest in Brussels.
Vive la Francophonie !

[Eric Brown]

Chirac contre l'anglais

Jacques Chirac, who in his posturing appears as a Jeanne d'Arc de nos jours, is, however, right in one respect: "The world of tomorrow will not be built on a single language."

The 21st century will be dominated by two global superpowers: the USA and China. To trade successfully with them, EU member states should learn the language of each of these superpowers. It is not enough to be Eurocentric and think that a knowledge of a European language is enough.

Yours,

Eric Brown

[marc de berner]

Good ole Jack. He does know how to makes us all laugh at him.

[John Galpin]

As an Englishman who is also quite a francophile I still fail to see what Chirac thinks he has actually achieved apart from a bit of gesture politics. Does he really believe any particular trend that the rest of the planet finds convenient is going to change as a result of this sort of xenophobic petulance? I don't think that anyone consciously wants to see any language or culture suppressed or even become extinct but it may still happen as it has through thousands of years of history. How many speak Akadian or Hittite today in spite of the fact that they were once associated with thriving civilisations? The world always has and will move on using whatever it finds most convenient, important or attractive at the time. To me Chirac's behaviour makes France and French seem less attractive, in fact ridiculous rather than desirable, which is actually to no ones benefit.

[Peter Carrington]

Oh Nicole, where is the ‘spite’ you talk of? The media bashing ‘the French for speaking French’? Not, I don’t think, on these pages and not in this weblog…I have re-read it all, Mr. Bremner’s original piece and the, to date, 19 responses, including my own, and I just don’t see it. What I see is a legitimate question followed by a reasonable debate, some more pertinent and insightful than others. Surely it’s right to question the motives and objectives behind Chirac’s actions in Brussels. Whatever else may be said of him, he is one of the most experienced political leaders in the world and he knew exactly what he was doing and the effect it would have. Equally valid to ask if the money spend by the government supporting and defending French as a language and culture is money either effective or wisely spent.

There is no conspiracy Nicole, nobody wants to see French disappear or become a forgotten language. Like you I speak French and English and use whichever is appropriate to the situation I am in. I live in Paris so that means I spend all my days using French and, as I have said before, I have no time for those who come to France and refuse or fail to use French for their daily life. When I go home to London I use English and as you say about yourself, ‘am I the poorer for it’? Of course not but that isn’t the issue.

As I see it the issue isn’t using French in France but using French outside France. We live in a global world and if France is to maintain it’s place in that world it must interact with that world and, critically, sell its goods and services to that world. And here is the crunch: A French company that turns up in, for example, China or South America speaking only French will not sell its goods very easily if at all. It will do best if it speaks Mandarin or Spanish but, failing that, the as you describe it, ‘the pidgin commonly used in the global corporate world’ will be much more likely to yield orders than insisting on French. The French business community finds this reality self evident, as Mr. Bremner pointed out.

The President knows it too so why make the gesture he did? The answer lies I’m sure in your last but one sentence: ‘even though demonstrators are protesting M.Chirac's government's social reforms, a poll shows that a majority of the French nevertheless support his protest in Brussels.’ Yes of course they do and he knows it. He did talk about the issue of social reform while he was in Brussels but he didn’t want you – a French citizen and voter I guess - to focus on that so he made a grand gesture instead.

I read recently that a well know French diplomat said in a book he wrote a few years ago that ‘The primary mission of a government is to serve, not to please’ Chirac was trying to the later at the expense of the former and given the problems that France faces such tactics are not to be applauded. The author who wrote those words was Dominique de Villepin who is today finding them difficult to live up to.

[Alan Marsh]

The most distressing thing for the many English francophiles for whom the future of France is a matter of profound concern, is that in France itself the French language and culture are rapidly vanishing in the face of massive immigration, not only from from former French colonies but from England.

In 25 years France has become almost unrecognisable, shorn of its borders and its currency, and its pretentious wine industry exposed by the advent of much better products from the new world. If France does not quickly assert its own language, culture and identity within its own territory, then there will be nothing left to debate.

[David]

Chirac is right. The world tomorrow will not be dominated by one language. Bilingualism will become the norm. Don't bother about Mandarin though, unless you live in the USA, Oceania or SE Asia. You Europeans need to learn Arabic. You should really start preparing for your impending dhimmitude.

[Quentin Girault]

As a French young man and, above all, as en European, I have to answer to at least one thing that have been said on this weblog: there is no riot right now in France, riots has appeared in november 2005, and ended after three of four weeks (i live a "cité"). But now, this is just a huge contestation against a law and, sadly, there is also some robbers on stage, but this only takes place in Paris and anyway,we are talking about a thousand of "hoody-guys", there is no way you can call it a riot.
And, concerning the topic, i think you have to see the context: Chiras is now an old president who just can remember how many times he had failed. This is not representative of anything except his own state of mind: weak, desperate..
P.S: well, all apologies for my poor English.. this would be my first and last comment anyway.

[Mike]

France has to reinvigorate its ability to create objects and activities, and then it it can project them into the world with French names.

Imported technology, skills and habits will bring their terminology with them.

[alan morgan]

Having read all the comments, I will simply say that I do not wish to live in a world where French is not spoken. France despite all remains a civilised country, beautiful and magnificent in its failings and triumphs. Enough prattle children, back to work!

[Christian Daviron]

French is a beautiful language which I speak badly, despite being married
to a Frenchman. We have gone to great lengths to bring up our children
to be bilingual, and as college students they are delighted to be so (in
earlier years the work involved was daunting and the French too often the
butt of American jokes.) But now they love their Frenchness, their
ability to make puns in two languages, and their ability to fit in in two
countries. It enriches their lives.

And I find that French waiters are always relieved that it is I who
struggle to speak in French: it saves them from trying to speak English.
As one of your respondents said, when in Rome . . . only the boorish
insist that the natives speak the visitors' language.

And if business people fail to build relationships or understand nuance
because they do not speak the language, that is their loss. How sad it
is that language teaching in Britain has become so poor. My
franco-american daughter, at a Scottish university, passed into a Spanish
class for which A level was required, yet she had done only two years of
Spanish as one of her five classes in high school. That is an
interesting measure of the international value of a Spanish A level.

[Frank Schnittger]

When in Rome, do as the Romans did - speak Latin. The rise and fall of dominant languages is tied in with the rise and fall of empires. If you wanted to get ahead in ancient Rome you had to speak Latin - even though they had a great appreciation of the (superior) Greek language and culture.

We are now in the era of Pax Americana - and if you want to get ahead - you have to speak American -(English is but a quaint regional variation - even though it, too, has a superior sophistication and culture).

If you want your language to be dominant, you have to conquer the world - and impose your language by force or economic necessity. It doesn't work the other way around. Just because your language and culture is in many ways superior - doesn't mean that it will sustain its global status.

Chirac has it the wrong way around. France needs to dominate the world economically or militarilly if it wants to sustain its language as anything other than a multi-regional curiousity. Sustaining French by artificial susbsidies or tantrums will not sustain France in a world leadership role.

All the great languages end up absorbing vast quantities of words and phrases from antecedent or adjacent languages and cultures in any case. They are constantly evolving as the world changes around them. To hark back to Hegel or Racine misses the point. Neither had a word for Helicopter.

Those who create the new realities will determine the language we use to describe them. History is written by the winners in their own language. The losers hark back to some "pure" preconquest form of their own culture and become but a tourist attraction for (the frequently uncouth) controllers of the new dispensation.

Until, that is, the new empire becomes so corrupt that it collapses under its own internal contradictions and a new power - and new language emerges into a position of pre-eminance. Anyone for Mandarin?

[Jupiter]

as far as I know most languages have influenced or dominated other languages. It's a function of change and mentality. One day English speakers will be groaning, either at the impurities introducing themselves into their language or the ubiquity of some other tongue/ communication system. Remembering the 'outraged of Tonbridge Wells' era in Britain, it is no new thing. Perhaps we should be pleased when a compatriot can speak fluently in another language or breezily borrow subtelties for lack of home-grown ones. Déjà vu; trompe l'oeil?

[andrew kelsey]

Just as multinational companies need an official language for meetings so the EU needs one official language for its conferences. If anybody can put forward a good argument as to why this language should be anything other than English I'd be very interested to hear it. Of course those who struggle with English will feel uncomfortable for a while but each successive generation of eurocrats will speak the language better and better and eventually nobody will remember what the problem was. I'm afraid Chirac is just a French King Canute trying to hold back the tide. Could we not have a vote in the EU to adopt English officially so we could stop all this nonsense and save gazillions of euros in unecessary translation. Disclaimer...I like the French and love their language and their food, I just don't think it's sensible to walk down an 'up' escalator.

[Michael Luczyk]

Hello everyone,
I've just read all of the comments on this discussion, and just thought to post my views. I'm from the United States of America (tried to avoid using the controversal term 'American') so I guess the English that I am privilaged to have learned, the easiest way, is looking to be the language of business, profit, money, whatever. I'd also like to share with you is that I'm interested in languages and studied 5 years of french and 3 years of Spanish, and now I am an exchage student in Mexico.
My view: Through my experiences I know that in the US, Spanish is definitely the "language to be learning" if one is going to learn another language at all, Chinese who knows. . . not just yet. So while personally I would be rejoiced to hear of possible french dominance over spanish (english), I feel that while there are 20 countries with Spanish as the offical language and 300 million speakers, opposed to 125 million (I'm just remembering figures they might be wrong) not to mention the number of spanish speakers in the USA, I think that it is less of a need, for me, and more of a "frill." I suppose that french is spoken in a number of african countries but the population just isn't there. I think France "lost out" on the colonization to Britian/Spain and then to the economics and population of the USA (300million vs. 65million) so it has a mighty hard battle to overcome. It's unfortunate but nevertheless I'll personally will try to continue my studies of the french language, cause it is COOL!
-mike

P.S. sorry the spelling and grammar is off, It's late. Who says to communicate one has to speak English 100% correctly. I'm sure some of you who know English as a second language know the grammar better than 50% of the US speakers, myself included.

[Robert Johnson]

Perhaps Chirac should retire to his Chateau-Gite in the French country-side. Then he can enjoy a holiday and speak French to the sheep on his estate!

[Jordan Berson]

It seems to me that M. Chirac is desperately avoiding the real issues at hand in France today.

While he plays the pompous but injured head of state, his leaderless country is unravelling (labour strife, civil unrest, xenophobia) at a breathtaking speed.

Living in Montreal for over 40 years, I have seen all of this before. Good luck to our confreres/soeurs.

[Marquette]

Cher Monsieur Bremner,
Vous maniez l'ironie et la moquerie avec talent, cela ne vous donne pas raison pour autant.
Chirac a eu raison de marquer son désaccord avec Seillière. Pour une fois qu'il agit avec un peu d'estomac, ce grand escogriffe, je ne vais pas lui jeter la pierre.
Faut-il rappeler que la langue française est l'une des langues officielles de l'Union européenne, et que davantage d'Européens parlent le français que l'anglais ? (et d'ailleurs davantage l'allemand que le français) Il n'est donc pas du tout incongru que que les Français parlent français, les Allemands allemand, et, bien entendu, les Anglais anglais. Pourquoi faudrait-il que chacun s'exprime dans un globish (global english) lobotomisé interdisant à beaucoup d'exprimer leurs idées avec subtilité ? Car même si l'on est à l'aise dans une langue étrangère, si l'on peut parler à bâtons rompus et parfaitement se faire comprendre, bien peu (seuls les bilingues de naissance, je pense) sont aussi à l'aise dans leur langue maternelle que dans une langue étrangère. Pourquoi se mettre en état d'infériorité en parlant une langue qui n'est pas la nôtre face à des Britanniques qui bien souvent sont fort médiocres en langues étrangères et ne font aucun effort pour se mettre à la porté de leurs partenaires (et je ne parle par des Américains, bien pires en la matière) ? Et ce sont les Français qui sont arrogants ?
Par ailleurs, ce que vous ne semblez pas saisir, Monsieur Bremner, c'est l'identité française. Je sais que c'est un peu grandiloquent, ce que je viens d'écrire, mais tant pis, cela pour donnera une occasion de plus de vous gausser. Vous pouvez moquer l'identité française, la ridiculiser, c'est votre droit. Mais force est de constater que vous ne la respectez pas. La moquerie, si facile s'agissant des Français, bouc émissaires naturels des médias anglo saxons, vous met en position avantageuse, mais témoigne plutôt de votre fatuité et d'un clair manque d'ouverture d'esprit.
L'identité française, ce n'est pas une race, ce n'est pas une religion, ce n'est pas un territoire (on peut être très français sans vivre dans l'hexagone), être français c'est le "vouloir-vivre ensemble" de Renan et c'est parler français.
Il est bon de parler d'autres langues étrangères. Il est même sans doute pratique que l'une d'entre elles soit choisie plutôt que les autres pour communiquer entre étrangers. Et l'anglais est sans doute une bonne langue à cet égard.
Mais on ne peut ignorer que 140 millions de personnes ont le français pour langue maternelle (et je n'intègre pas les Bulgares...Là encore, la moquerie met les rieurs de votre côté, mais ne fait pas un argument), que des dizaines de millions de personnes apprennent cette langue comme langue étrangère, et que le français porte en lui un patrimoine extrêmement riche. Alors oui, le français est notre identité et nous n'avons pas envie de la troquer contre du mauvais anglais.
Souffrez que nous existions, Monsieur Bremner !

P.S. : quoique résidant aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique et étant parfaitement capable de rédiger ce commentaire en langue anglaise, j'ai préféré m'en abstenir dans un acte de Résistance symbolique dont la portée ne vous échappera sans doute pas !