Parisians must learn to speak English, says mayoral hopeful

THE Académie Française has long fought to stop English words creeping into common French parlance, but an ally of Emmanuel Macron is vowing to make Parisians fluent in English.

Benjamin Griveaux made the pledge as part of his campaign to become mayor of Paris. The former government spokesman and confidant of the president said it was deplorable that “Paris is a global city where we speak English badly, when it is an essential language to travel and work”.

Mr Griveaux added this his “aim is for all Parisian children to be bilingual” by the age of 16. Mr Griveaux wants to introduce English in nurseries and organise extra-curricular activities in English.

Mr Macron, the French president, often speaks English when meeting foreign leaders, in a departure from most recent French presidents.

Although he has backed efforts to maintain French as an international language, especially in France’s former African colonies, and to resist the encroachment of English, he has been mocked for his fondness of peppering his speeches with English words.

Soon after he was elected, he ended a speech about French business with the English phrase: “I want France to be a start-up nation.”

Like his mentor, Mr Griveaux sees teaching English as “a useful investment for the future”.

Mr Griveaux, an MP for Mr Macron’s La République en Marche party, is the president’s favoured candidate for the mayoral election in March.