Approches politiques de la situation du français dans le monde

• Main Author: Yves Montenay
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association Portugaise d'Etudes Françaises 2016-11-01
• Series: Carnets
• Subjects: Africa; francophonie; cooperation; globalization; working language
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/carnets/1956

This paper presents the main points of La langue française, arme d’équilibre de la mondialisation (The French language, a weapon to balance globalization), Les Belles-Lettres, Paris, 2015. This book examines the impact of extrinsic events (wars, revolutions...) as well as intrinsic systems (demography, economics, North-South cooperation...) on the worldwide use of French. It then analyses how this language is rooted in Africa and the crucial importance of the coming years in African countries for French’s worldwide destiny. But helping the training in French of those hundreds of millions of (more or less) French-speaking people, exceeds what the traditional cooperation with France and other northern francophone countries is able to do, while, simultaneously, those African countries attract the interests of foreign economic actors, even those opposed to the spread of French. The paper will also point up how companies and private business does root the use of French, but sometimes also spread the use of English.