The French government is relentlessly awful in its support for tax harmonization, regulatory harmonization, and other policies to drag other nations into the cesspool of statism. But France’s desire for a one-size-fits-all approach miraculously vanishes when it comes to language. Even though English is now the world’s language, especially for commerce, the French are resorting to coercion and protectionism to protect against – gasp! – English words. I greatlyenjoyed this column about France’s fight against modernity:
A French group entitled Avenir de la Langue Française (Future of the French Language) has claimed that the invasion of English words poses a greater “threat” to France’s national identity than the imposition of German under the Nazis. Writing recently in Le Monde and l’Humanite, the group, supported by eight other patriotic organizations, has called on the Sarkozy government to turn back the English flood. “There are more English words on the walls of Paris,” they state, “than German words under the Occupation.” …English has became the dominant language of the Internet, air traffic control, computers, international business and by 2030 more Chinese people will be able to speak it than there are Americans. Already by 2001, English was being spoken by more than one in three of the 350 million citizens of the European Union, whereas fewer than one in 10 spoke French outside France itself. Even in those areas where French influence has been strong —Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Chad, and elsewhere—English has encroached very successfully. English is the official language used by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the only working language of the European Free Trade Association, the Baltic Marine Biologists Association, the Asian Amateur Athletics Association, the African Hockey Federation, while it is the second language of bodies as diverse as the Andean Commission of Jurists and the Arab Air Carriers Organization. …France’s traditional response to this linguistic “Anglobalization” has been to attempt a form of legal protectionism against the steamroller tongue of “les rosbifs” and “les Anglo-Saxons”. In 1994 the French Assemblée Nationale passed the Loi Toubon, which was signed into law by President François Mitterand. Named after Jacques Toubon, the culture minister, it stipulated that “French shall be the language of instruction, work, trade and exchanges and of the public services. “The use of French shall be mandatory for the designation, offer, presentation, instructions for use, and description of the scope and conditions of a warranty of goods, products and services as well as bills and receipts. The same provisions apply to any written, spoken, radio and television advertisement” and so on for another 21 highly prescriptive clauses. The law has been used against American and British companies, such as Disney and the Body Shop on the Champs Elysées that had labels in English. …In two centuries, French may have to be protected as a linguistic curio, like Britain does with Cornish or Manx. Until then, the French must learn to be bilingual, or risk being left behind in the global market-place, gasping outraged complaints in a tongue fewer and fewer people understand.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013033899213 088.html
