Emmanuel Macron often speaks about the French language. He speaks with a rapid-fire fluency, which allows him to transform the obvious into a revelation… or an approximation into doctrine. This talent must be acknowledged. Yet, three recent or recurring phrases are enough to reveal a problem that runs deeper than mere clumsiness.
Regional languages were said to have been "an instrument of division within the nation."[1]The epicenter of French would now be located in the Congo Basin.
[2]Arabic is said to be the second most spoken language in France[3]Each of these statements can be explained, nuanced, even defended, if one takes care to place it in its context. But their combination produces something other than a discourse on languages. It reveals a way of thinking about France, or rather, a refusal to think of it as anything other than a space traversed by flows, figures, diplomatic signals, and demographic promises. I do not dispute here that the French language has a global presence. Nor do I dispute that Francophone Africa is one of its great future markets. I do not dispute that Arabic is very present in French society, nor that regional languages have had a difficult history with the central government.
However, I dispute the political use of these findings.
A language is not defined solely by the number of its speakers. A nation cannot be summed up by the map of its domestic practices. A civilization does not long survive when it chooses to speak of itself in the vocabulary of its own dissolution.
Regional languages did not divide France: they were France.
The statement about regional languages is the most revealing because it seems to come from another era. It rests on an old administrative idea: that France should have protected itself from its dialects, its local languages, its provincial loyalties, as if they were so many small, dormant seditions. French was supposed to have forged the nation against these languages, and these languages were supposed to have represented the disorder from which it had to escape.
No one denies that French contributed to the unity of the country. It was the language of law, of schools, of administration, of scholarly conversation, and of social ambition. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, the Revolution, the republican school system, the army, the press, and the university all imposed or disseminated a common language. This history exists. It produced a rare unifying power. It allowed people from very different provinces to participate in the same public life. It gave citizens a language of law, and therefore a language of equality. But this truth does not justify misinterpretation. Regional languages were not, by their very nature, instruments of division. They were the languages of birth, of work, of landscapes, of families, of provinces, of long-standing loyalties. They spoke of France before they spoke of the Republic. Breton, Occitan, Basque, Corsican, Alsatian, Flemish, Catalan, and the langues d'oïl were not conspiracies against the nation. They were ways of life. They did not have to be humiliated for French to be loved.
The State has often confused unity with uniformity. It has believed that a common language requires the subjugation of others and has made internal diversity a threat, when it could become a heritage. This Jacobin error does not require us to abandon French as the national language; on the contrary! It does, however, require us to think about it more firmly. A common language does not need to despise the languages it unites. It must organize them without denying them and create a higher space for deliberation, not erase all prior memory. The paradox is that the same president who suspects regional languages of being divisive readily celebrates multiple identities when they come from elsewhere. Languages rooted in the French provinces cause concern; languages stemming from immigration are of interest; the languages of the global Francophonie inspire enthusiasm. This is less a reflection of thought than a reflex of the times: diversity is suspect when it recalls the old France; it becomes precious when it heralds the new.
The Congo is not the Seine
The statement about the Congo Basin might seem more accurate. From a demographic perspective, the center of gravity of the Francophonie is shifting. Undoubtedly, Francophone African countries will have an increasing influence on the digital future of French, and there's no need to be alarmed. And if this growth is accompanied by strong schools, reading materials, universities, newspapers, libraries, literary works, and political freedom: so much the better! A language that travels doesn't necessarily lose its soul. It can be enriched by new voices.
But the word "epicenter" is not innocent. It suggests a shift deeper than a simple statistical observation. It implies that numbers alone are enough to determine the center. Yet our language is not a census. It is not only what is spoken "in French." It is also what has been written, debated, transmitted, corrected, taught, and cherished in French. A grammar, a literature, a way of reasoning, a refinement of abstraction, a history of the sentence: something that transcends mere communication. French belongs to all those who speak it, but that does not make it a language without origins. It is not a floating idiom that can be detached from its history and praised to the masses. Its original homeland matters! Not to exclude others, but because every language of civilization bears a debt. Latin survived Rome, but it was never understood without Rome. Spanish belongs to America as much as to Spain, but Cervantes doesn't become a provincial anomaly simply because Mexico City or Buenos Aires bestowed other grandeurs upon the language. Global French doesn't erase France. It either extends or betrays it, depending on what we choose to make of it. We must therefore distinguish between the Francophonie as a demographic space and French as a civilizational heritage. The former can shift, multiply, and transform. The latter demands fidelity. It's not about maintaining Paris as a "customs house" of vocabulary or a "prefecture" of proper usage, no. It's about remembering that the authority of a language isn't measured solely by its circulation, but also by what it allows us to think, what it preserves, and what it demands.
A language can have many speakers and few readers. It can be ubiquitous yet transmitted nowhere. It can serve advertising, song, diplomacy, commerce, and yet gradually cease to be the repository of thought. The danger is not that French is spoken on the banks of the Congo. The danger would be that this vibrant language would be used to excuse its abandonment in France itself.
Arabic in France, the Arabic of France?
The statement about Arabic requires further caution. Saying that Arabic is the second most spoken language in France can be true or false depending on what one means by that. Are we talking about Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, dialectal Arabic, Moroccan Darija, Algerian Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, or family languages that are more or less transmitted, more or less written, more or less mastered… in immigrant families who are mostly Berber-speaking? Are we talking about a language that is read, spoken, understood, prayed, sung, and studied? Linguistics begins precisely when we abandon slogans. There is no reason to disdain Arabic. It is a great language of civilization. It has carried a theology, a philosophy, a poetry, a science, and an imperial and religious memory. It can be studied seriously. We should even study it more closely, that is, as a difficult, complex, and noble language, and not as a tool for community communication or a sign of political appeasement. But we must still distinguish between the fact itself and its interpretation. The fact that a language is widely spoken in a territory does not necessarily give it the same status as the national language. France contains many languages. It contains regional languages, languages of immigration, languages used in schools, liturgical languages, commercial languages, and languages of the heart. Yet it has only one national language. This distinction is not at all offensive. It is, in fact, essential for the possibility of living together.
French is not merely the majority language. It is the language of law, of schools, of citizenship, of public debate. It is what allows citizens from diverse backgrounds to avoid being confined by their particular heritages. The fact that Arabic is widely spoken in France says something about immigration, families, religion, neighborhoods, and cultural transmission. It does not (yet) tell us what France should want for itself. Finally, a statistic does not constitute a language policy. It can shed light on a reality; it does not determine a destiny. We can acknowledge the presence of Arabic without making it the symbol of a new France destined to define itself against its traditional language of culture. We can teach Arabic without weakening French. We can recognize a major foreign language without turning it into an argument against assimilation. Everything depends on the intention. And it is precisely this intention that is worrying when a power speaks of the French language with more tenderness for its peripheries than for its heart.
The mistake: confusing all the plans
The difficulty lies less in each individual sentence than in their summation. When he speaks of regional languages, Emmanuel Macron reverts to the old centralizing tone: local diversity threatens unity. When he speaks of the Congo, he becomes a demographer: numbers shift the center. When he speaks of Arabic, he becomes a sociologist and diplomat: the presence of a language in French society deserves recognition. These three lines of reasoning can be defended separately. Together, they form an incoherence. The government suspects regional languages in the name of the nation, then relativizes the national language in the name of global Francophonie, then valorizes an immigrant language in the name of sociological reality. It is Jacobin when it comes to the provinces, globalist when it comes to Africa, and multiculturalist when it comes to Arabic. There is no language policy here. We are dealing with a formless "thing," which adapts to the whims of the powers that be and which makes policy not by choice, but by organic contingency. We make no decisions; we simply endure events, even reveling in them. Demographics? It's not a policy, but a boon. Deconstruction? It's not a policy, but an unavoidable fact. Climate? We can't do anything about it; that's just the way it is, we must obey the laws of imposed change. Language? Same thing. Culture? "That" can be circumvented.
But a language requires a framework for thinking. We must distinguish between what constitutes the national language, what constitutes regional heritage, what constitutes the international Francophonie, and what constitutes foreign languages present in the territory. Everything can be recognized, but not everything can occupy the same position. Confusion of these distinctions inevitably leads to confusion. Would French become the language of dictatorship simply because its speakers are (or already are) subjects of dictatorial regimes?
French can welcome words from elsewhere. It always has. It can hear the accents of the world. It can produce African, Québécois, Caribbean, Swiss, Belgian, and Lebanese literatures. It can even be challenged by popular usage, provided that schools, universities, publishing houses, and critics continue to transmit the formal language. A living language is not a static one. But a living language is not one abandoned to the winds either. The standard is not the enemy of life but its condition. Without it, it is social noise. It circulates, it amuses, it signals, it sells, it seduces, but it no longer educates. It no longer allows us to grasp the nuances of law, literature, thought, or memory. It becomes what politics fantasizes about: an immediate instrument, without depth, without debt, without master.
The French language as a discipline of the mind
I teach linguistics, Old French, and the French language. I therefore know that languages change. I know that they borrow, that they shift, that they sometimes simplify, that they become more complex elsewhere, that they live through usage and not by decree. Nothing is more ridiculous than a purism ignorant of history. French itself was born of alterations, contacts, and slow transformations. It carries within its very being traces of Vulgar Latin, Germanic languages, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, English, and many other influences. Those who want a chemically pure language are not defending French; they are creating a museum. But the opposite extreme is more dangerous today. It consists of believing that a language is merely a usage, that one usage is equivalent to another, that a repeated mistake immediately becomes an asset, that an impoverishment of expression deserves the name of evolution, that the disappearance of nuances is a democratic victory. This idea flatters the times because it absolves us of the need to learn. It presents laziness as openness and ignorance as modernity. Old French teaches something else entirely. It shows that French has depth. It reminds us that our language does not begin with ministerial talking points, advertising messages, industrial jingles, or presidential improvisations. It has a long history. It has survived regimes, wars, religious disputes, aesthetic revolutions, educational reforms, academies, salons, lecture halls, and printing presses. It has shaped generations of minds that spoke not only to communicate, but also to judge.
A language of civilization is a school of precision. It teaches us to distinguish what is similar, to prioritize what is juxtaposed, to name what eludes us. It gives words to passions so that they do not become mere cries. It gives syntax to thought so that it does not settle for mere opinions. It gives the living a memory so that they do not start the world anew each morning in amnesia. This is why the question of French cannot be reduced to a pleasant celebration of diversity. Diversity is not a sufficient principle. There are fruitful diversities and destructive diversities. There are mixtures that enrich because they encounter a strong form. There are others that weaken because they occur in a vacuum. To welcome, one must first have a home.
Defense and Illustration of the French Language
Defending French is not about denying regional languages, nor about despising foreign languages, nor about rejecting the global Francophonie. It is about putting everything in its proper place. Regional languages belong to France's heritage. They are not internal enemies. African Francophonie is an opportunity if it is not used to symbolically denationalize French. Arabic is a great language that deserves better than the tactical uses to which governments put it. French, for its part, remains the common language of the French nation and the language of a civilization for which we are accountable.
It is not enough for a language to be spoken. It must be passed on. It is not enough for it to be passed on. It must be taught. It is not enough for it to be taught. It must be loved for what it allows us to reach beyond ourselves. A language that no longer promises any elevation is dead. One can still order a meal, fill out a form, express a desire, denounce an adversary. One can no longer forge a people with it. The French tragedy is not that others speak French elsewhere. It is that we sometimes seem to give up speaking our own language as a language worthy of being inherited. We lighten it, we simplify it, we excuse it, we sociologize it, we commodify it, we globalize it, and then we are surprised that it no longer structures much of anything. French does not only need speakers. It needs teachers, students, readers, writers, grammarians, professors, parents, and institutions that are not ashamed to transmit it. There is a generous way to conceive of the French language. It consists of saying that it can be offered to the world without being torn from its history. It can become African, American, Eastern, Oceanic, without ceasing to be French in its origin and in an essential part of its form. It can welcome new voices without consenting to the erasure of its memory. It can be common without being vague.
What these presidential pronouncements reveal is less a hatred of French than an inability to inhabit it. French is successively presented as a tool for unification, a demographic market, a diplomatic symbol, an accessory of diversity. It is never presented for what it also is: a discipline of the mind, a literature, a verbal homeland, a long conversation between the dead and the living. France can recognize all the languages it wants. It can celebrate regional languages, teach Arabic, salute the Congo, engage in dialogue with Montreal, Dakar, Brussels, Port-au-Prince, or Beirut. It can do so nobly. But it will only do so nobly on the condition that it does not forget that French is not a wasteland. It is a home. A home opens itself, expands, is restored, is passed on. It is not defended by bricking up the windows. Nor is it saved by tearing up the foundations.
