Posted on 05/05/2017 6:30:28 AM PDT by Spiridon
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has told a conference in Italy on the EU that "English is losing importance in Europe".
Amid tensions with the UK over looming Brexit negotiations, he said he was delivering his speech in French.
"Slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe and also because France has an election," he said, explaining his choice of language.....
Top EU officials say they want liberal independent Emmnanuel Macron to beat his nationalist rival, Marine Le Pen......
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Trying to help Macron is what I see here by giving the EU a pro-French image.
They run scared of Marine Le Pen.
Even if she loses Sunday, stick around for the two rounds of the parliamentary election in June.
The FN only has two seats of 577 but the party's newfound strength (which would be seen even if Marine Le Pen only reaches around 40 percent popular vote) is going to put it in good shape for big gains.
“English language ‘losing importance’-EU’s Juncker”
Wishful thinking.
English is the nearest thing we have to a global language.
No other language is even a close second.
I'd be will to wager that English is at,or near,the top of that list.
Japan makes some quite nice cars these days and there are even one or two American cars that are worth considering.
Proceed with extreme caution,Junker! Not everyone is thrilled by your Communist sympathies.
And yet oddly enough French is NOT the language of business
Juncker is psychotic
France can kiss my grits. I’m a Huguenot who came to
America & fought in the American Revolution AFTER we were
slaughtered and thrown out of France by the Catholic priests. - I used to wonder why my grandparents were so
hostile to the Catholic hierarchy & staunchly Protestant.
English is the most widely spoken second language in Europe and in the world by far - no other language even comes close. In spite of claims that Mandarin Chinese is the most common first language, it is probably actually English, given the population of the former British Empire. After Chinese and English, it’s Spanish. English is also the most common official or quasi-official language, the language of business and of science. Official claims notwithstanding, English is spoken fluently by well over a billion people, and understood to a significant degree by something on the order of 3-4 billion. It truly is the closest thing we have to a global language, thanks to the domination of the globe by first the Brits and then Americans for the past few centuries.
“And yet oddly enough French is NOT the language of business”
It’s not the language of science, either. At almost any international conference, the universal language is English.
Wow. You're really old. Thank you for your service!
LOL ;)
At any gathering of Europeans where native languages differ, the language of conversation is almost always English.
This was done to help Macron.
This was done to help Macron.
The only Belgie worth a tinker’s dam is Hercule Poirot.
When I was a kid, English speaking Europeans and Israelis spoke with a pronounced British accent. Not any more. They speak with pronounced American accents. Interesting.
When it comes to technology and business everyone defaults to English. Typical French, a heightened sense of self-importance. They probably really think the world is on the brink of everyone speaking French. One could argue Spanish well before French.
...but yeah, not happening.
(Nigel Farage showering contempt on the EU parliament...response is in French.)
Nigel Farage to MEPs: ‘most of you have never done a proper job’
https://youtu.be/40ule97jkRA
True that
That is true, Europeans seek to sound American. There are videos coaching people to sound American on YouTube.
Anicdotally... I was in a pub in Ireland, way-way off the beaten path in County Cavan, a gruff bartender stopped me mid sentence and asked: “...are you an American or some European trying to sound American?”
Remember also, the French fought against popes, imprisoned popes on occasion, and sacked the Papal States...France was not a papal lapdog. The French government was controlled and influenced by turns by ardent Catholics, disinterested Catholics, and Huguenots. France was primarily interested in maintaining the order and cohesiveness of the country, and the Huguenots made themselves as troublesome to that end as the French-Algerians of today. Their eventual expulsion was, you might say, "nothing personal, just business."
The history of religious interaction is seldom as one-sided as any of us would like to believe.
Juncker’s game was influence the French election, that’s my sense of his act.
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