CASTRIES St. Lucia, February 23rd, 2012 -- A worldwide success, Spielberg’s film Tintin recounts the adventures of a French-speaking strip cartoon character. Like him, millions of French speakers across the world continue to speak and learn French, a decidedly vibrant and modern language.
The number of French speakers has tripled in the last 60 years. It is often thought that the French language is in decline, but the opposite is true. In fact, according to the French language watchdog the Observatoire de la langue française, there are now around 220 million French speakers across the world, placing France in 8th position among international languages.
English dominates in the ranking of official state languages, since it is the official language in 63 countries; it is followed by French, official language in 36 states.
There is no war of languages. You can learn and speak English at the same time as French. Languages do not exclude one another and the number of French speakers is constantly growing. A quarter of the world’s language teachers teach French to some 100 million pupils. On top of this we have the work of the Alliances Françaises and Francophone and Francophile associations.
Within the European Union, after English, French is the first language chosen in primary and secondary education. That makes it the second most studied language in the 27 Member States, 14 of whom are members of the International Organisation of La Francophonie.
In Africa and even in South-East Asia, contrary to preconceptions, French is not receding. Indeed Nigeria, which is set to become the third most densely populated country in the world within 50 years, has made the teaching of French as a second language compulsory.
A useful language
French speakers tend to champion French by putting forward the fact that it is a “beautiful language” which opens up a world of undeniable and specific cultural riches. They are not wrong. The French television channel TV5 is the most widely available international TV channel after MTV and CNN.
In the United States, French is the original language of 30% of translated books and of half of the foreign films broadcast. But aside from cultural reasons, one of the weightiest arguments for a pupil to decide to learn French is that it is useful and even necessary, and not only within international or European institutions.
Speaking French is an advantage in economic development. Jean-Benoît Nadeau, author of the book Le français, quelle histoire ! (The Story of French), reminds us that the world’s second-largest retail chain after Wal-Mart is France’s Carrefour, present in 34 countries compared with its American French, a language shared by 220 million people.
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