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.
Pity the poor French- they haven't figured out we're switching to Espanol.
Given the long-standing attitudes between the French and the British, this has to go down sour for many French people.
Oh, the irony of that statement is astounding.
I worked for a global French company for 4 years and even the meetings at the Paris headquarters were in English.
Everyone knew that the real lingua franca is now English.
Also, in France, I believe.
"We are so blessed we have English as our native tongue, many Americans probably have no idea how much so!"
Why? I don't know, maybe English has more words and more precise words. I can't help loving to hear a French person or an Italian person speaking. In the future there probably will be some globilization of language, but I hope we don't lose the beauty and the lovingness along with it.
Hmmm, I wonder what the French word for "hubris" might be?
I wish I knew what you are talking about. But maybe you don't want people like me to know.
The term lingua franca (derived from 'French language') is used to describe a universal language, one that educated people are all expected to speak. I found it amusing that English is now being described as a 'lingua franca' and by the French, no less.
I don't think so. There are 300 million people in the US alone, of whom 90%+ speak English at home. Britain has over 50 million, and the rest of the Anglosphere must have at least another 50-100 million primary English speakers.
And the 515 million total speakers is way too low also. 515-300=215. There are more than 215 million people in India alone who speak English as their second language. A billion total speakers of English is more like it.
-ccm
-ccm
"The term lingua franca (derived from 'French language')"
It's not French it's Latin. (sorry to point that out - it's the petty pendant in me!)
That said, "Franca" does kind of sound like it could come from a root that is a homonymn with the word "French". So I guess it still read as ironic!
The other weird thing about the French Language is that they actually have a global supreme arbitor of the language - I think it is called something like the 'Acadamie Francais". I meets once a week to argue the toss over words, and find french sounding words for new things being invented and named by English speakers!
Even in this there is a cultural difference.... the English speakers leave words to the 'free market' to decide if they enter the language (a word gets in our dictionaries only if it survives common useage for a length of time). The French government have socialised this process and state control it! Tells a story in itself....
Wikipedia puts the native English speaker figure at 380 million.
This is an interesting site listing languages used on the Internet. It puts the total English speakers worldwide (not just on the 'net) at 1,125,664,397. Now some of those will have French, etc., as a first, second, or third language as well.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
I think that is the Alliance Francaise, and yes they actually think they are relevant. Probably the word 'Internet' is banned in Quebec. It would all be quite 'drole' except if one had to live under those language Nazis - one reason I left Quebec a long time ago.
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