France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
has one
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
, the
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...
. The
French government
The Government of France (French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who i ...
does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals, but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications. In addition to mandating the use of French in the territory of the Republic, the French government tries to promote French in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
and globally through institutions such as
La Francophonie
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...
. The perceived threat from
Anglicisation
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
has prompted efforts to safeguard the position of the French language in France.
Besides French, there exist many other vernacular minority
languages of France
Of the languages of France, French is the sole official language according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France.
In addition to French, several ...
, both in
European France, in
Overseas France
Overseas France (french: France d'outre-mer) consists of 13 France, French-administered territories outside Europe, mostly the remains of the French colonial empire that chose to remain a part of the French state under various statuses after ...
, and in French
overseas territories. These languages are recognized by article 75-1 of the
French constitution
The current Constitution of France was adopted on 4 October 1958. It is typically called the Constitution of the Fifth Republic , and it replaced the Constitution of the Fourth Republic of 1946 with the exception of the preamble per a Consti ...
.
[Article 75-1: (a new article): "Les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France" ("Regional languages belong to the patrimony of France"). See Loi constitutionnelle du 23 juillet 2008.] The 1999 report written for the French government by
Bernard Cerquiglini identified 75 languages (including just
eight in continental France proper) that would qualify for recognition were the government to ratify the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...
(currently signed but not ratified).
History
The
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (french: Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts) is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France on August 10, 1539, in the city of Villers-Cotterêts and the oldest French legislat ...
of 1539 made French the administrative language of the kingdom of France for legal documents and laws. Previously, official documents were written in medieval
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, which was the language used by the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
Académie française
The
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
was established in 1635 to act as the official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, and to publish an
official dictionary of the French language. Its recommendations however carry no legal power and are sometimes disregarded even by governmental authorities. In recent years the Académie has tried to prevent the
Anglicisation
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
of the French language.
French Revolution
Prior to the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
of 1789, French kings did not take a strong position on the language spoken by their subjects. However, in sweeping away the old provinces,
parlement
A ''parlement'' (), under the French Ancien Régime, was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 parlements, the oldest and most important of which was the Parlement of Paris. While both the modern Fre ...
s and laws, the Revolution strengthened the unified system of administration across the state. At first, the revolutionaries declared liberty of language for all citizens of the Republic; this policy was subsequently abandoned in favour of the imposition of a common language which was to do away with the other languages of France. Other languages were seen as keeping the peasant masses in
obscurantism
In philosophy, the terms obscurantism and obscurationism describe the anti-intellectual practices of deliberately presenting information in an abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject. There are two ...
.
The new idea was expounded in the ''Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the
patois
''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...
and to universalise the use of the French language''. Its author,
Henri Grégoire
Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire (; 4 December 1750 – 28 May 1831), often referred to as the Abbé Grégoire, was a French Catholic priest, Constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent slavery abolitionist and sup ...
, deplored that France, the most advanced country in the world with regard to politics, had not progressed beyond the
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
as far as languages were concerned, and that only three million of the 25 million inhabitants of France spoke a pure
Parisian French as their native tongue. The lack of ability of the population to understand the language in which were the political debates and the administrative documents was then seen as antidemocratic.
The report resulted the same year in two laws which stated that the only language tolerated in France in public life and in schools would be French. Within two years, the French language had become the symbol of the national unity of the French State. However, the revolutionaries lacked both time and money to implement a language policy.
Third Republic
In the 1880s, the
Third Republic sought to modernize France, and in particular to increase
literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
and general knowledge in the population, especially the rural population, and established free compulsory
primary education
Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...
.
The only language allowed in primary school was French. All other languages were forbidden, even in the schoolyard, and transgressions were severely punished. After 1918, the use of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
in
Alsace-Lorraine was outlawed. In 1925,
Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie (22 November 1876, Bazas, Gironde – 11 January 1947, Paris) was a French administrator, encyclopaedist ('' Encyclopédie française''), political figure and scholar. His father was a tax collector in Bazas, Gironde whe ...
, Minister of public education, stated that "for the linguistic unity of France, the
Breton language
Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of t ...
must disappear." As a result, the speakers of minority languages began to be
ashamed when using their own language – especially in the educational system – and over time, many families stopped teaching their language to their children and tried to
speak only French with them. In neighbouring
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, a parallel
policy to expand the use of standard French also took place.
Fourth Republic
The 1950s were also the first time the French state recognised the right of the regional languages to exist. A law allowed for the teaching of
regional language
*
A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area.
Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
s in secondary schools, and the policy of repression in the primary schools came to an end. The Breton language began to appear in the media during this time.
Fifth Republic
The French government allowed in 1964 for the first time one and a half minutes of Breton on regional television. But even in 1972, president
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou ( , ; 5 July 19112 April 1974) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. He previously was Prime Minister of France of President Charles de Gaulle from 1962 to 196 ...
declared that "there is no place for minority languages in a France destined to make its mark on Europe."
In 1992 the constitution was amended to state explicitly that "the language of the Republic is French."
The
Toubon Law (full name: law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language) mandated the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other contexts.
The law does not concern private, non-commercial communications, such as non-commercial web publications by private bodies. It does not concern books, films, public speeches, and other forms of communications not constituting
commercial activity. However, the law mandates the use of the French language in all broadcast audiovisual programs, with exceptions for musical works and "original version" films.
[Se]
Television Regulation in France
a 2005 report sponsored by the Open Society Institute
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...
.
Broadcast musical works are subject to
quota
Quota may refer to:
Economics
* Import quota, a trade restriction on the quantity of goods imported into a country
* Market Sharing Quota, an economic system used in Canadian agriculture
* Milk quota, a quota on milk production in Europe
* Indi ...
rules under a related law whereby a minimum percentage of the songs on radio and television must be in the French language.
A minimum of four in ten songs broadcast by domestic radio stations must be in the French language.
In 2006, under this law, a French subsidiary of a US company was fined €500,000 plus an ongoing fine of €20,000 per day for providing software and related technical documentation to its employees in English only.
In 2008, a revision of the French constitution creating official recognition of regional languages was implemented by the Parliament in Congress at Versailles.
In 2021, a law on regional languages was adopted by the parliament. However, its articles on immersion education in public schools and on use of regional languages' diacritics in civil records were vetoed by the Constitutional Council.
The debate about the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
In 1999 the Socialist government of
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Jospin was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for President of France in ...
signed the
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but it was not ratified. The
Constitutional Council of France
The Constitutional Council (french: Conseil constitutionnel; ) is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958 to ensure that constitutional principles and rules ...
declared that the Charter contains unconstitutional provisions since the Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French.
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European
convention (ETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical
regional
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
and
minority languages in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, ratified and implemented by 25 States, but not by France, . The charter contains 98 articles of which signatories must adopt a minimum of 35 (France signed 39). The signing, and the failure to have it ratified, provoked a public debate in French society over the charter.
More recently, in a letter to several deputies dated 4 June 2015,
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
announced the upcoming filing of a constitutional bill for the ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. On 30 July 2015, the
Council of State
A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...
gave an unfavorable opinion on the charter. On 27 October 2015, the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
rejected the draft law on ratification of the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...
driving away the assumption of Congress for the adoption of the constitutional reform which would have given the value and legitimacy to regional languages.
Minority and endangered languages
Excluding the languages spoken in the
overseas regions and other overseas territories, and the languages of recent immigrants, the following languages are spoken by sizeable minorities in France:
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
(
Gwenedeg/
Vannetais,
Gwennraneg,
Kerneveg,
Leoneg, and
Tregerieg)
Francosign languages
French Sign Language (LSF)
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
Alsatian,
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
(
West Flemish
West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French-Flanders), nl, West-Vlaams, french: link=no, flamand occidental) is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and t ...
/
French Flemish
French Flemish (French Flemish: , Standard Dutch: , french: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Fland ...
),
Lorrainian,
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of th ...
, and
Yenish
Isolate languages
Basque/Euskara and
Lyons Sign Language
Spurious languages are languages that have been reported as existing in reputable works, while other research has reported that the language in question did not exist. Some spurious languages have been proven to not exist. Others have very li ...
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
*
Gallo-Italic languages
The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications def ...
:
Ligurian
*
Gallo-Romance languages
The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
**
Langues d'oïl
The ''langues d'oïl'' (; ) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. These belong to the larger ...
:
Angevin
Angevin or House of Anjou may refer to:
*County of Anjou or Duchy of Anjou, a historical county, and later Duchy, in France
**Angevin (language), the traditional langue d'oïl spoken in Anjou
**Counts and Dukes of Anjou
* House of Ingelger, a Frank ...
,
Berrichon
Berrichon ( or ) is an Oïl language very closely related to French or a dialect of it traditionally spoken in the historical area of the French province of Berry. The word is also used as a demonym and as an adjective meaning "pertaining to B ...
,
Burgundian,
Champenois,
Frainc-Comtou,
Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...
,
Lorrain Lorrain may refer to:
* Claude Lorrain (1600–82), a 17th-century French artist of the baroque style
* Lorrain language, a Romance dialect spoken in Lorraine region in France and Gaume region in Belgium
See also
* Lorain (disambiguation)
* Lor ...
,
Manceau,
Mayennais,
Normaund,
Picard,
Poetevin,
Saintonjhais, and
Walloon
**
Occitano-Romance languages
The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/ Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...
:
Auvergnat
or (endonym: ) is a northern dialect of Occitan spoken in central and southern France, in particular in the former administrative region of Auvergne.
Currently, research shows that there is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a va ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Gascon (
Béarnese and
Landese),
Langadocian,
Limousin
Limousin (; oc, Lemosin ) is a former administrative region of southwest-central France. On 1 January 2016, it became part of the new administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It comprised three departments: Corrèze, Creuse, and Haute-Vienn ...
,
Niçard,
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
,
Provençal, and
Vivaroalpenc
Vivaro-Alpine ( oc, vivaroalpenc, vivaroaupenc) is a variety of Occitan spoken in southeastern France (namely, around the Dauphiné area) and northwestern Italy (the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont and Liguria). There is also a small Vivaro-Alpine e ...
**
Arpitan languages:
Burgondan,
Dauphinois Nord/Isérois,
Forézien,
Franco-Provençal
Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy.
Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separ ...
,
Jurassien,
Lyonnais
The Lyonnais () is a historical province of France which owes its name to the city of Lyon.
The geographical area known as the ''Lyonnais'' became part of the Kingdom of Burgundy after the division of the Carolingian Empire. The disintegratio ...
(
Bressan),
Mâconnais
The Mâconnais district is located in the south of the Burgundy wine region in France, west of the Saône river. It takes its name from the town of Mâcon. It is best known as a source of good value white wines made from the Chardonnay grape; the ...
, and
Savoyard
*
Ibero-Romance languages
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languagesIberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
:
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
(
Castilian)
*
Italo-Dalmatian languages
The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia).
Italo-Dalmatian can be split into:Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Hasp ...
:
Corsican and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Romani languages
Romani (; also Romany, Romanes , Roma; rom, rromani ćhib, links=no) is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to ''Ethnologue'', seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their o ...
Auvergnat Romani,
Caló, and
Sintikès
![SpeakFrenchBeClean](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/SpeakFrenchBeClean.jpg)
The non-French
Oïl languages and Franco-Provençal are highly endangered; because of their similarity to standard French, their speakers conformed first in
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, and then
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
much more readily. The other languages are still spoken but are all considered endangered.
In the 1940s, more than one million people spoke Breton as their main language. The countryside in western
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
was still overwhelmingly Breton-speaking. Today, about 170,000 people are able to speak Breton (around 8% of the population in the traditionally Breton speaking area), most of whom are elderly. Other regional languages have generally followed the same pattern; Alsatian and Corsican have resisted better, while Occitan has followed an even worse trend.
Accurate information on the state of language use is complicated by the inability (due to constitutional provisions) of the state to ask language use questions in the
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
.
Since the rejection of ratification of the European Charter, French governments have offered token support to regional languages within the limits of the law. The ''Délégation générale à la langue française'' (
General delegation of the French tongue) has acquired the additional function of observing and studying the languages of France and has had "et aux langues de France" (...and languages of France) added to its title.
The French government hosted the first ''Assises nationales des langues de France'' in 2003, but this national round table on the languages of France served to highlight the contrast between cultural organisations and language activists on the one hand and the state on the other.
The
decentralization
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Conce ...
has not extended to giving power in language policy to the regions.
In April 2021, France approved the "Molac" law (8 April 2021) which aims to protect and promote regional languages across the country. The law allows for schools to offer teaching in the medium of a regional minority language for the majority of the school day. However, the French Minister of Education, opposed to the teaching in minority languages, asked the Conseil Constitutionnel to declare it unconstitutional. This led to the law being constitutionally struck down on 21 May 2021.
Opposition to language policy
According to French republican ideology (see also
Laïcité
(; 'secularism') is the constitutional principle of secularism in France. Article 1 of the French Constitution is commonly interpreted as discouraging religious involvement in government affairs, especially religious influence in the determin ...
), all ''citizens'' are ultimately ''Frenchmen'' and therefore no minority ''groups'' (i.e. ethnolinguistic groups) may exercise extra rights; this is an idea stemming from the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, contrasting with the previous situation in which many distinguishable groups had special rights and privileges in their regions.
This policy of cultural homogeneity has been challenged from both the right wing and the left wing. In the 1970s, nationalist or regionalist movements emerged in regions such as Brittany, Corsica and Occitania. Even though they remain a minority, networks of schools teaching France's regional languages have arisen, such as the
Diwan in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, the
Ikastola
An (, plural ) is a type of primary and secondary school in the Basque Autonomous Community, Navarre and (to a much lesser extent) the French Basque Country (see Basque Country) in which pupils are taught either entirely or predominantly in the ...
in the
Basque Country, the
Calandreta A Calandreta () is a bilingual school in Southern France where the Occitan language is a medium of instruction, alongside French. These schools are based on the same principle as the '' Diwan'' schools of Brittany, as well as the '' Gaelscoileanna' ...
in
Occitania
Occitania ( oc, Occitània , , or ) is the historical region in Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe where the Occitan language, Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes still used as a second language. This ...
, and the
La Bressola schools in
Northern Catalonia
Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia, ; french: Catalogne (du) Nord ; oc, Catalonha (del) Nòrd; es, Cataluña (del) Norte) French Catalonia or Roussillon refers to the Catalan-speaking and Catalan-culture territory ceded to France by Spain ...
.
Despite popular demand for official recognition, regional language teaching is not supported by the state. However, in certain areas, such as Brittany, regional councils maintain bilingual public schools as far as it is within the law. Other Breton education is provided by
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
schools and private schools, Dihun and
Diwan, respectively. In 2011, only 14,000 pupils were enrolled in French-Breton bilingual schools, although this number reflected an increase of around 30% from the year 2006, when the number of pupils was just over 11,000. The Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg also reported in 2011 that a further 16,000 students from early childhood to adulthood were learning Breton as a second language (at primary schools, collèges, lycées, university or evening courses), bringing the total number of Breton learners to at least 30,000.
A long campaign of defacing road signs led to the first bilingual road signs in the 1980s. These are now increasingly common in Brittany, because of the help given by the
Ofis ar Brezhoneg
The Public Office for the Breton Language ( br, Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg; french: Office public de la langue bretonne) was established on 15 October 2010 as a public institution, with state and regional cooperation and funding, to promote and deve ...
in bilingualizing many road, town hall and other official signs.
As far as the media are concerned, there is still little Breton to be found on the airwaves, although since 1982 a few Breton-speaking radio stations have been created on an associative basis. The launching of the Breton
TV Breizh in 2000 was intended to offer wider coverage of Breton. However, Breton-language programme schedules gradually decreased in favour of French-language broadcasting, until in 2010 they totally disappeared.
In Corsica, the 1991 "Joxe Statute", in setting up the Collectivité Territoriale de Corse, also provided for the
Corsican Assembly
The Corsican Assembly ( co, Assemblea di Corsica; french: L'Assemblée de Corse) is the unicameral legislative body of the territorial collectivity of Corsica. It has its seat at the , in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio. After the 2017 territo ...
, and charged it with developing a plan for the optional teaching of Corsu. At the primary school level Corsu is taught up to a fixed number of hours per week (three in the year 2000) and is a voluntary subject at the secondary school level,
[(French]
Dispositif académique d’enseignement de la langue corse dans le premier degré, année scolaire 2010-2011
Academy of Corsica but is required at the
University of Corsica.
There is some opposition to the
Loi Toubon mandating the use of French (or at least a translation into French) in commercial advertising and packaging, as well as in some other contexts.
See also
*
Académie de la Carpette anglaise
*
Francization
Francization (in American English, Canadian English, and Oxford English) or Francisation (in other British English), Frenchification, or Gallicization is the expansion of French language use—either through willful adoption or coercion—by more ...
*
Language death
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the deat ...
*
Language planning
In sociolinguistics, language planning (also known as language engineering) is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure or acquisition of languages or language varieties within a speech community.Kaplan B., Robert, and Richard ...
*
Language policy
Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco ...
*
Vergonha
In Occitan, ''vergonha'' (, meaning "shame") refers to the effects of various language discriminatory policies of the government of France on its minorities whose native language was deemed a ''patois'', where a Romance language spoken in the c ...
References
Further reading
*GEMIE, S. (2002), ''The politics of language : debates and identities in contemporary Brittany'', French Cultural Studies n°13, p. 145-164.
*HAQUE, Shahzaman (2010b), "Enjeux des politiques linguistiques: pratiques et comportements langagiers mutilingues dans un pays monolingue". In: M.Iliescu, H. Siller-Runggaldier, P. Danler (éds.) Actes du XXVe Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes, Innsbruck 2007, Tome I. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 163-172. Available at
*HAQUE, Shahzaman (2010a)Place des langues natives et d'accueil chez trois familles migrantes indiennes en Europe. In Andrea Rocci, Alexandre Duchêne, Aleksandra Gnach & Daniel Stotz (Eds.) Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée, printemps 2010: Sociétés en mutations: les défis méthodologiques de la linguistique appliquée. Numéro Spécial, 2010/1, 225-236.
*HAQUE, Shahzaman (2008), "Différences de politiques linguisitiques entre nation et famille: Etude de cas de trois familles indiennes migrantes dans trois pays d'Europe". In: Suvremena Lingvistika Vol. 34 (65), 57-72. Available at https://hrcak.srce.hr/25188
*KYMLICKA (Will), ''Les droits des minorités et le multiculturalisme: l’évolution du débat anglo-américain '', in KYMLICKA (Will) et MESURE (Sylvie) dir., Comprendre les identités culturelles, Paris, PUF, Revue de Philosophie et de sciences sociales n°1, 2000, p. 141-171.
*SZULMAJSTER-CELNIKER (Anne), ''La politique de la langue en France'', La Linguistique, vol 32, n°2, 1996, p. 35-63.
*WRIGHT (Sue), 2000, ''Jacobins, Regionalists and the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional and Minority Languages'', Journal of Multilingual and Multicural Development, vol. 21, n°5, p. 414-424.
*
REUTNER, Ursula (2017), ''Manuel des francophonies''. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.
External links
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