Posted on 05/06/2017 12:01:02 PM PDT by HonkyTonkMan
FLORENCE — Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, opted to deliver a speech in French on Friday morning because he said “English is losing importance” in Europe.
He gave the comments, which are unlikely to mend fences after a war of words between Brussels and London over Brexit negotiations, at the “State of the Union” conference in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio — an annual event for European dignitaries.
Juncker said he was opting for French because “slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe and France has elections this Sunday and I want the French people to understand what I am saying about the importance of the EU.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...
Classic case of butt hurt over Brexit.
He wishes.
Baghdad Bob, courtesy phone.
English is only losing its importance in Europe, if Europe is losing its importance in the rest of the world.
English is dying, but not as fast as French.
“There were ten German Junkers in the air.”
...and no one listened.
Pompous A-hole to the nth degree. He and his other cohorts are one of the reasons the Brits are heading for the exit.
English is losing importance.
So are French and German.
Arabic is ascendant.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-02/will-icelanders-one-day-ditch-icelandic-english
Tell that to Iceland.
Riiiiight. Just ask anyone from China, or India, or anywhere else if they want to make a decent living. There are more people who speak English as a second language than any other language.
Poor Juncker.
I always liked Nigel Farage’s response after Brexit to Mr. Juncker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjWV9Bhc0g
Heh. Says the FRENCH dude. I learned French in High School, so I’m not exactly thrilled with the prospect, but French is becoming irrelevant. And so is Germany. English is the lingua uh, franca of the modern world.
He is correct about losing importance, the EU, that is.
Soon to be supplanted by Farsi
I think at this point they had better learn the translation of two words. French is aliments and argent. The English translation is food and money. They don’t have a lot of either and we do. Back to school Jean-Claude.
ewood
Most unfortunately it most likely will take another major world war for these assholes to remember why they use English rather than German.
This guy is delusional. I was just in France (not just Paris, but in the Midi), and at restaurants, hotels, museums, they will speak French to you, but if you speak with an American accent, they typically go to English.
The tourists from Germany, Russia, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan almost always speak English to the French. Even when the languages are somewhat close such as French/Italian or French/Spanish, English is used to communicate which I always find amusing.
English is the language of the tourist, the financial industry, business, airlines and on and on. At the airports in France but everywhere else in Europe, flight info is in the native language and English on both the flight info listings and over the loudspeaker.
What this guy really should be worried about is that if demographic trends continue, Arabic will be replacing the Euopean languages in 30-40 years
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