{"id":23901,"date":"2016-06-29T18:10:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T16:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=23901"},"modified":"2016-06-29T18:01:45","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T16:01:45","slug":"is-the-future-of-the-eu-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/is-the-future-of-the-eu-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The Future Of The EU French?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The recent <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/largent-expressions-and-slang\/\"><em>Brexit<\/em><\/a> vote in the UK has left many people wondering about the future of the EU. One aspect in particular has been questioned: the role of <strong>l&#8217;anglais<\/strong> (English) now that the UK is no longer a member, and the role of the other <strong>langues de travail<\/strong> (working languages), French and German.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23902\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter post-item__attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23902\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23902\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;French and European flags&quot; by ZeroTwoZero. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.\" width=\"640\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU-350x199.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-23902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=3957406\">&#8220;French and European flags&#8221;<\/a> by ZeroTwoZero. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The role of French in the EU has greatly diminished since its creation. <strong>Les Fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> (the French) were not always pleased with this and until recently were sometimes very vocal about the issue. <strong>L\u2019ex-pr\u00e9sident fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> (the former French president), <em>Jacques Chirac,<\/em> famously left <strong>une reunion<\/strong> (a meeting) <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/travelling-in-french-le-nouvel-an-en-belgique\/\"><strong>\u00e0 Bruxelles<\/strong><\/a> when the French businessman, <em>Ernest-Antoine Seilli\u00e8re,<\/em> said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I will express myself in English because it is the language of business.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7VEugTMkymU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen title=\"Embedded video\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Jacques Chirac comments on the incident. A translation is provided in the description of the video.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Any linguistic tension has mostly died down in the past decade, although <strong>les Fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> are still known to <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/sorry-for-the-time\/\">make mistakes<\/a>. It has become almost universally accepted that <strong>l\u2019anglais<\/strong> is the main <strong>langue de travail<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Cependant, tout a chang\u00e9 !<\/strong><br \/>\nHowever, everything has changed!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to EU law, members are allowed one official language, and <strong>seulement le Royaume-Uni<\/strong> (only the United Kingdom) chose<strong> l\u2019anglais<\/strong> as its official language in the EU.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Mais il y a d\u2019autres pays anglophones dans l\u2019Union europ\u00e9enne ?<\/strong><br \/>\nBut there are other English speaking countries in the European Union?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Tous les autres pays anglophones<\/strong> (all the other English speaking countries) chose a different language as their official language <strong>dans l\u2019UE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>L\u2019Irlande<\/strong> (Ireland) chose <strong>le ga\u00e9lique irlandais<\/strong> (Irish Gaelic)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Malte<\/strong> (Malta) chose <strong>le maltais<\/strong> (Maltese)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Le Chypre<\/strong> (Cyprus) chose <strong>le grec<\/strong> (Greek)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Having one of those countries change their language or adding <strong>l&#8217;anglais<\/strong> as a separate official language would be very hard to do.<\/p>\n<p>Changing a language would require a unanimous vote, and it\u2019s always difficult to get <strong>tous les pays<\/strong> (all the countries) to agree on something.<\/p>\n<p>Allowing <strong>un pays<\/strong> (a country) to have two official languages or allowing a non-member language into the EU would open up the question for other languages used throughout the continent like <strong>le catalan, le corse, le russe, etc<\/strong> (Catalan, Corsican, Russian, etc).<\/p>\n<p>The other issue is that <strong>en pratique<\/strong> (in practice), <strong>l&#8217;anglais<\/strong> is the most commonly used language across Europe. It is also the most commonly used <strong>langue de travail<\/strong> in <strong>l&#8217;Union europ\u00e9enne <\/strong>(with the notable exceptions of <strong>le parlement europ\u00e9en \u00e0 Strasbourg<\/strong> and <strong>la Cour de justice europ\u00e9enne<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>L\u2019anglais<\/strong> is also spoken as a second language by <strong>environ<\/strong> (about) around 38% of Europeans. However, <strong>le fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> is spoken natively by <strong>environ<\/strong> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/have-you-ever-counted-to-one-billion\/\">80 millions<\/a> de personnes <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/which-stateprovince-are-you-from-expression-location-in-french\/\">en Europe <\/a><\/strong>and <strong>l\u2019allemand<\/strong> (German) by <strong>environ 100 millions de personnes en Europe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cela dit<\/strong> (that said), it looks like <strong>l\u2019anglais<\/strong> will continue to be used as <strong>la langue v\u00e9hiculaire<\/strong> (the lingua franca) of Europe and <strong>l\u2019Union europ\u00e9enne<\/strong>, but the recent vote <strong>au Royaume-uni<\/strong> raises questions about the legality of its continued use.<\/p>\n<p><strong>En tout cas<\/strong> (in any case), the role of <strong>le fran\u00e7ais dans l&#8217;Union europ\u00e9enne<\/strong> will likely be discussed while these changes take place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"199\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU-350x199.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU-350x199.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/640px-Flag_of_France_and_EU.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>The recent Brexit vote in the UK has left many people wondering about the future of the EU. One aspect in particular has been questioned: the role of l&#8217;anglais (English) now that the UK is no longer a member, and the role of the other langues de travail (working languages), French and German. The role&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/is-the-future-of-the-eu-french\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":23902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23901","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}