The French have an inferiority complex about their own language (that's why English is taking over)

Yahoo

04-04-2025

France is experiencing an English language invasion of the most 'grotesque' and 'idiotic' kind.
But the kicker is that they have only themselves to blame, say some of the country's staunchest defenders of the French language.
For years, English words have been appearing in French adverts, public institutions, workplaces and everyday conversations. They're given prime real estate in brand names such as Carrefour City, a supermarket chain, and Ma French Bank, or sprinkled willy-nilly in office conversation, with co-workers tossing out words such as benchmarking, le planning and le briefing in a French-laced accent.
But the latest example of anglicisation from the national lottery, the Française des Jeux, which recently changed its name from FDJ to FDJ United, has renewed the conversation, with some experts describing the country's obsession with the English language as a sign of something much larger and more disturbing at play.
'My hypothesis is that it's an inferiority complex. Not so much towards the English language, but towards Anglo-American culture,' says Paul Rondin, the director of the Cité Internationale de la Langue Française, dubbed France's first temple to the French language, which opened about 50 miles north east of Paris in 2023.
When it comes to the English language invasion, Rondin pulls no punches, attributing the long-standing phenomenon to a self-destructive, slavish submission to America's cultural hegemony.
'I think we need collective group psychotherapy,' says Rondin. 'Why is it that all these French people, who are supposed to be so arrogant, so sure of their culture and their history, are spending their time transforming words into an anglicised name? What does that mean? I don't have any hypotheses or answers to give you at this time, but there's something deeply troubling going on here.'
For his part, Mickaël Vallet has his own theory. The fault, the Socialist senator says, lies squarely among French consultants, marketing and sales teams, many of whom may have studied in the United States, and who default to English to come up with branding and slogans in a bid to sound clever.
Instead, it just sounds insufferably pretentious and pompous, he says.
'These are people who were paid to come up with a new name, and are lazy and, in general, just idiots,' he says. 'They're people with no inventiveness whatsoever. They're paid a lot of money not to think.'
What does he think of FDJ's name change? 'Totally ridiculous,' grumbles Vallet.
When the operator of France's national lottery announced the name change last month, the group explained that the addition of the word 'United' was meant to reflect the group's growing European reach. After acquiring Premier Lotteries Ireland in 2023, the French group also struck a €2.45 billion (£2.05 billion) deal to take over online gambling operator Kindred (which operates mainly out of Sweden) in 2024.
'Today, our group is beginning a new chapter in its history, more diversified and more international,' said Stéphane Pallez, the president and CEO of FDJ United, in a press statement.
French is the fifth-most spoken language on the planet. But France's linguistic influence around the world has been waning. Up until recently, 60 per cent of the world's 300 million French speakers lived in Africa. After military coups, junta-led governments and growing hostilities with France, countries such as Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have either dropped French as an official language or renamed French-named streets and monuments in a bid to sever ties with their former colonial ruler.
Closer to home in Europe, not even Brexit could save French. When Britain left the EU, politicians in its National Assembly hoped that French would become the only working language of the EU, calling Brexit a 'unique opportunity' to reverse the march of 'Anglo-Saxon culture'. Yet so many European officials were used to English – particularly among the Baltic and Scandinavian representatives – that the status quo prevailed. In fact, 'Brussels English' is used around the Belgian capital's EU institutions more often than French.
It's important to note that it's not just the anglicisation of the French language that irks defenders of the French language. After all, they emphasise, it's natural for language to evolve with time. But what they deplore is the widespread use of Globish, or global English, a simplified version of English used by non-native speakers that consists of roughly 1,500 words.
'Globish is a code. It's not a language,' explains Vallet. 'And when I speak to someone, I want to speak to them with a language, not with a code.'
Vallet has been a vocal crusader against the use of Globish and the anglicisation of the French language for years. In 2019, he made headlines as the mayor of his commune, Marennes, in the department of Charente-Maritime, for banning Orange's promotional lorry because it was called Orange Truck. The telecommunications company eventually renamed its truck in French.
As senator, he's continued his fight, most recently reprimanding the country's national rail operator, SNCF, for using English words such as 'capping' to denote maximum ticket sales in internal communications with staff. In his correspondence with CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou, Vallet reminded the SNCF boss that under French legislation, known as the Toubon Law, all documents concerning employee obligations must be written in French.
One of the big reasons that Vallet has been working to 'de-Globish' the French language is because he says it has become a tool of division between the elites and the rest of French society – and, by proxy, serves to fuel the rise of the far-Right.
'The far-Right thrives on rifts between the elites and the people. And one of the most visible manifestations of this is when those in power or those in charge no longer speak a language that can be understood by those they represent. The feeling of rupture with the elites is one of the most important drivers of the far-Right,' he said.
In 2022, the guardians of the French language at the Académie Française also raised the alarm on the 'invasive anglicisation' found in public institutions, local authorities and public and private companies, calling it tantamount to discrimination.
'The massive and continuous spread of an often-distorted Anglo-American vocabulary, wrongly considered well known to the general public and of almost universal use, has the contradictory consequence of risking a proportional impoverishment of the French lexicon, and of increasing discrimination between audiences,' they wrote in a 30-page report.
And one of the biggest repeat offenders? The French president himself, adds Louis Maisonneuve, the co-founder of a collective, Dare to Speak French, that works to defend the French language. Under Emmanuel Macron's government, major international events have been given English names such as Choose France and One Planet Summit. The president, a former banker, has also been mocked for sprinkling his speeches with phrases such as 'bottom up', 'scale up' and 'start-up nation' throughout his two-term presidency.
'Macron says that colonialism is a crime against humanity; that also applies to linguistic colonialism, which is the colonialism of our ideas,' Maisonneuve says.
'Except that under no circumstance are the English forcing English on us. It's not the fault of the English and not the fault of the Americans, either… It's the French who are bowing down in front of everything that comes from the Americans. We're rolling out the red carpet for the Anglo-American language.'
Maisonneuve insists the group is not political, and that its supporters are not language purists. But they take particular offence at elevating the English language above all others.
'It's not a criticism of English expression. It's a criticism of those who only use English. We put all the emphasis on the Anglo-American language.'
To combat this 'elitist' bilingualism, the group has filed legal complaints against municipalities and tourist attractions, forcing operators of the Eiffel Tower and the Lascaux caves to add Spanish as a third language on all signage.
But for tourist attractions and slogans such as 'I love Nice' or 'Only Lyon' which are aimed at international travellers, is it not logical to use English, a dominant international language?
'Well, tourists will learn French,' Maisonneuve says, pointing out that the French equivalent 'J'aime Nice' is not complicated.
Likewise, the senator emphasises that it's a mistake to believe that English is the only international business language, pointing out that in the European Union, French and German are also widely used as working languages.
'As the saying goes, the language of Europe is translation,' Vallet says.
French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini, who published his book The English Language Doesn't Exist – It's Just Badly Pronounced French in 2024, said the most egregious part of the English language invasion is swapping out words that already exist in French for English equivalents, be it 'date' instead of rendez-vous amoureux or 'challenge' instead of défi.
'It's not the Anglicism that bothers me. It's the process of abandoning one language in favour of another,' he says.
According to Cerquiglini, more than 80,000 terms – or a third of the English vocabulary – are of French origin. That includes FDJ's word 'united', which actually has French roots, he says.
'My book is part of that reaction. I say to the French, 'You're stupid. You want to abandon French in favour of American English, without realising that English comes from French.''
What's more, Cerquiglini questions why France would want to emulate the American model under the administration's current imperialist ambitions.
'What's the point? Is it to look more American?' he asks. 'Anglomania has existed for a long time, but at the moment, it's taking on an astonishing aspect. With [Donald] Trump right now, I don't feel like being American.'
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