WSJ: Macron wants to oust English from EU
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, wants to make French grand again and replace English as the default language in EU institutions, the way it was before Britain joined the bloc in 1973. With the U.K. negotiating to leave the EU next spring, he is eager to restore the linguistic ancien regime, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“English has probably never been so present in Brussels as when we’re talking about Brexit,” Mr. Macron said in March on the Day of Francophonie—a celebration of French language and culture observed in more than 70 countries. “This domination is not inevitable,” he declared.
English is by far the leading foreign language taught in the EU, according to official statistics. Over 80% of primary-school children and over 95% of secondary-school students across the bloc learn English before any other foreign language.
Still, Brexit means a downgrading for English. Today it’s the official language for 12.8% of the EU’s 511 million people but after Britain leaves it will be just the second official language in just two countries: Ireland and Malta. Combined they represent 1.2% of the EU’s post-Brexit population.
A more modest, but perhaps not less daunting, challenge is improving the EU’s English. The bloc’s main translating body says 81% of EU documents are drafted in English, 5% in French, 2% in German and the rest in the 21 other languages. Yet only 2.8% of EU staff are British.
Mr. Macron said he wants to “set some rules, to be present, and make French the language with which one has access to a number of opportunities.” He pledged to offer more French classes to EU officials and to beef up its international network of French-speaking schools.
One Macron ally in the battle to restore French is European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a native from neighboring Luxembourg, who frequently delivers public remarks in French and German.
“Why would Shakespeare’s language be superior to that of Voltaire?” Mr. Juncker said on French TV recently. “We are wrong to have become so anglicized,” he said, in French.