I’ll make French the world’s top language, vows Macron
BURKINA FASO: Native French speakers comprise little more than 1 per cent of the world’s population, leaving it 18th in the global league table beside Korean and the Indian language Marathi. But French President Emmanuel Macron, well known for his ceaseless political ambition, has turned his attention to making French the first language of Africa and even the most spoken tongue in the world.
Macron forecast a radiant future for the language in a lecture to students in Burkina Faso on a tour to bolster ties with the former French west African colonies, home to the world’s fastestgrowing population of French speakers.
French no longer belonged to France, Macron said. ‘‘French will be the first language of Africa ... perhaps of the world.’’
Like his predecessors, Macron has been talking up the influence of French in the face of the hegemony of English, which has more than 600 million non-native speakers, as the global lingua franca.
Unlike his recent predecessors, Macron speaks good English and has drawn fire at home by breaking presidential tradition and speaking English in his appearances abroad.
France is delighted that an expected leap in the African population will bring a big boost for la Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations.
While French is the first language of only 75 million people worldwide, 153 million have it as their second language, and it is spoken by a total of 274 million people. That makes it the fifth most-spoken language, after Mandarin, English, Spanish and Arabic, according to Paris.
A 2014 study by Natixis bank forecast that French would overtake English and Mandarin by 2050, based on a jump in the African population from 800 million to 4.5 billion in 2100. Nearly 60 per cent of all Francophones live in Africa.
Paris invests a heavy financial and human effort promoting la Francophonie in the face of English. The 58 member states have mainly used French to some degree in the past, but they also include Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and other places with few French connections.
The imminent departure of Britain from the European Union has prompted calls for French to regain its previous supremacy in European institutions.
Mario Monti, a former Italian prime minister and EU commissioner, stirred Gallic ire last week when he called for English to become the main official language of the EU after Britain’s exit.