Posted on 03/24/2006 7:38:06 PM PST by ex-Texan
When Jacques Chirac stormed out of a meeting at the European Union summit he said it was because he had been "profoundly shocked" to hear a French industrialist speaking in English.
On this basis, the French president may wish to stay away from a number of his nation's boardrooms.
Mr Chirac's outrage was all too visible on Thursday night when he heard Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the head of the Unice employers' organisation, explain he had decided to deliver his speech in English because it was "the language of business".
But in the boardroom of Air Liquide, the French industrial gases group, meetings are usually held in English. So too at the media group Thomson, once chaired by Thierry Breton, the French finance minister, who joined his president in boycotting Mr Seillière's meeting. At France Telecom - where Mr Breton was also once chairman - English is commonly used in internal memos.
French companies choose English because they do most business outside France and because of an increased foreign presence on their boards.
Meetings at Total, the oil group, regularly take place in English, even when only Frenchmen are present. "It's the language of the oil industry," explains a spokeswoman. English is also the lingua franca at Thales and EADS - the French government has stakes in both defence groups.
Air France-KLM holds meetings of "le strategy management committee" in English, while competence in the language is compulsory for managerial recruits at Renault. Mike Quigley, the chief operating officer and heir apparent at the telecoms equipment maker Alcatel, is an Australian who does not speak French.
"The English language has connotations of liberalism," said Jean-Louis Muller, the director of Cegos, a management training school. "The defence of the French language by politicians and unions is the defence of the French social model."
Mr Muller said the rise of English in French boardrooms appeared unstoppable: "I witnessed a meeting at [engineering group] Alstom where there were only French managers in the room but English was still the language."
Business French has become peppered with anglicisms - from "les roadshows" to "le spin-off" - and few managers prefer "une marge brute d'autofinancement" to "le cash-flow".
Students protesting at French labour reforms are employing banners in English, from "We shall never surrender" to "My kingdom for a real contract".
Opposite the Sorbonne, the ancient seat of French learning that has seen some of the most violent clashes between protesters and riot police, is a piece of graffiti that Mr Chirac and his government have more than one reason to worry about. "We are winning!" reads a slogan in blue spray paint.
Mr Chirac is not alone, though. French courts fined a division of General Electric €580,000 (£400,600) this month for failing to translate English documents into French.
At the EU meeting on Thursday night, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, sought to soothe ruffled French feathers by later abandoning the English notes for his speech in favour of an impromptu French translation, "in the interest of linguistic diversity".
In spite of Mr Barroso's efforts, the Commission, for so long a bastion of French dominance, is now a predominantly anglophone institution. Figures from its translation service show that in 1992 some 47 per cent of official documents were drafted in French, with only 35 per cent in English. By 2004, 62 per cent were in English, with only 26 per cent in French.
"Je? Parlez Anglais? Jamais! Je coasserais plutôt!," Dites les grenouilles."
["Me? Speak English? Never! I would rather croak! Say the frogs."] The entire nation is dealing with street riots, arson and vandalism. You would think that Chirac would be more in control of his his public persona. The Frogs are acting very hostile and illogical. It must be in their blood.
Obviously, Chirac and the rest of the Frogs have forgotten their most commonly used French phrase:"Sprechen Sie Deutsche?"
LOL!
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has been accepted a five year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing public enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the language is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "0" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud, of kors, be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German lik zey vunted in ze forst plas...
I'm no huge fan of England, but you have to admit the language is so well put together that one versed in it can proficiently express him/her self.
Yeah, right, sure.
Of course they are illogical. Celtic ferocity became French Elan.
I grew up reading Asterix and Obelix, in French, German, and Danish, as well as English.
So long, Marianne.
I studied French before the personal computer, so don't have much familiarity with how to insert the accents and other marks...
"So long, Marianne"
OK, that may be the sharpest, funniest comment I've ever read here. LC's funereal tone a double match. Dang, I can't get it out of my head!
You mean somebody remembers Marianne, from Le Point magazine, pretty in her minidress and Phrygian cap of freedom, a most winsome symbol of La Belle France?
But of course, that was such an earlier time!
Chirac made a big mistake. He let people know something was getting to him. Never show your hand. Never. Never. Never.
It is starting to sound like "newspeak" from "1984"
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