Chirac’s linguistic patriotism

On Friday French president Jacques Chirac made headlines around the world by walking out of the EU’s spring economic council in Brussels along with three of his ministers.

It was not over his objection over some union policies but more owing to his linguistic sensitivity of his fellow countryman not using their own language, but English while addressing all 25 heads of government.

The culprit was Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the French head of the European employers' group Unice, who defended his decision to speak in "the language of business".

No doubt that this was a dramatic gesture of the French president but wasn’t it irresponsible of him to walk out of the summit? Wasn’t he showing disrespect to the other leaders?

It is the reality of the day that English has become the most popular language in all aspects of life, especially in this era of globalization.

Mr Chirac is within his rights to promote his language as well, but he has to do that within the boundaries of his country and through his embassies and language centres around the world. He should not have chosen to make a stand at an international summit.

Mr Chirac defended his walkout by saying:

"We fight for our language. I was profoundly shocked to see a Frenchman express
himself in English at the table."

“It is not just national interest, it is in the interest of culture and the dialogue of cultures. You cannot build the world of the future on just one language and, hence one culture."

French once dominated the EU, but English has overtaken it since the bloc expanded to take in Nordic countries in the 1990s and east European members in 2004.

The Forbes website has this to say over this issue:

Chirac, who normally sticks to French during economic and political summits
despite his good spoken English, would do well to note that German was once the
lingua franca in big chunks of Europe throughout 19th and 20th centuries, especially in business, politics, science and sociology. And French was long the international language of diplomacy and commerce before it was replaced by English in the years after World War II.

Perhaps the French President should leave the purification and preservation of his language to the Academie Francaise--an official body that promotes the immortality of French, which no doubt meets once a week to sob over foreign neologisms in Sony adverts and the worrying presence of English-made brie in the communal fridge.

And BBC Online says this:

It would be hard not to read this as a display of "linguistic patriotism" to go with the official French government policy of "Economic Patriotism".

You could see both varieties of patriotism as either an inability to face up to the real world or a brave stand against the crushing force of Anglo-Saxon hegemony. Or both.

But they certainly reflect the reality of France's position within the European Union, which has been changing over the last decade.

Or could it be that Mr Chirac was just trying to win some brownie points back home which is rife with student riots over a new labour law?