It is not every day that the sight of a head of state leaving a meeting room has me in hysterics, but that is exactly what happened on Thursday night.
I was quietly watching the evening news on French television when all of a sudden, interspersed between images of students rioting in the streets of French cities and union leaders leaving Matignon grim-faced, came the announcement that the president of the republic had stormed out of the opening session of the latest EU summit because a Frenchman had had the temerity to address the council in English.
The Frenchman in question is Ernest-Antoine Seillieres, the leader of UNICE, the European Employers Federation. Seillieres had been invited to address the EU leaders as they met to discuss European energy policy. He started off in French but switched to English once he got past the formal niceties of his introduction. Why? Because, as he pointed out, English is the accepted language of business. Chirac, flanked by his two ministers, promptly stood and walked out. It was such a wonderfully flamboyant gesture executed with the panache of a drama queen, really I could not help but laugh.
It was a fantastic diversionary tactic. The French president arrived at the summit in a difficult position. At home, the crisis over the new youth employment law continues to gather momentum. Whilst in Brussels, Chirac was under pressure over what is seen as the return of industrial protectionism to the European arena. This was after all a summit on European energy policy and France has recently seen a government-orchestrated merger between GDF and Suez designed to block a possible takeover bid by Italy’s Enel. All this at a time when Sylvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, is facing parliamentary elections next month. The stage was set for a showdown between Chirac and Berlusconi, but it never happened.
Instead column inches have been devoted to Chirac’s walkout. To say that this gesture was met with derision is putting it mildly. The Anglo-Saxon press in particular have had a field day. One British tabloid went so far as to buy Chirac an English phrasebook as a gift — which the French president accepted with good grace and popped into his pocket.
I may have laughed but I think President Chirac has a point. The prominence of the French language is gradually being eroded, a trend which matches the erosion of France’s influence generally. The French language is very much the pillar of the nation’s culture. It was once the language of intellectual discourse, a symbol of the dominance of French culture in setting the standard for everything from fashion to philosophy. More than anything else, it was glamorous and classy. French was “chic” and provided us with a whole lexicon of words to describe social mores, words like “savoir-faire” and “faux pas”.
I remember when I was a child we used to spend holidays visiting my maternal grandmother in Damascus. It was common for people to pepper their speech with French words in order to appear more refined. French words gave their speaker “cachet”. Just as the stars of those beautiful black and white Egyptian films always threw in a couple of French words when they wanted to appear sophisticated. It went hand in hand with the perfectly tailored suits and the silver cigarette case. Quite simply French equated class.
French used to be the second language of choice, millions of schoolchildren sat through French lessons and struggled to come to grips with its complicated grammar.
It is still a very popular language; last year it was ranked 10th in the world with 129 million people speaking French either as their mother tongue or as a second language. But compare that to the 514 million who now speak English and you can see why people like Chirac are piqued.
French was once the language of international diplomacy, but no longer. It may still be one of the two working languages of the UN but English is more prevalent. Closer to home, France has tried hard to keep French as the dominant language at the EU. Back when there were only a dozen member states, French was the predominant language of day-to-day work. But enlargement has brought in countries that are more inclined to speak English than French with the result that English has largely overtaken French.
But it is in the business world that English has long been pre-eminent. Seillieres was right when he described English as the language of international business. Put a Saudi businessman in the same room with French, Japanese and Chinese businessmen and they are likely to speak English to each other.
As if that wasn’t hard enough on French pride, English words are seeping into the French language. At first it was innocuous words like “weekend” and “star”, but this has been followed by a torrent of words related to modern life and advances in technology.
The Academie Francaise, the pre-eminent French body on matters pertaining to the French language, is not amused. It now regularly devises new French words to fill those gaps and aggressively promotes their use.
The president of the French Republic is also the protector of the Academie Francaise, officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. It is part of President Chirac’s role to safeguard and promote the French language. He was right to be offended that a Frenchman chose to speak in English at an EU meeting, but surely the president of France might have had more pressing concerns?
