French Minister of Culture Franck Riester urged people to cut down on their increasing use of English, in the latest effort to protect the French language, even though French President Emmanuel Macron himself often slips English idioms into his speech.
France has long been proud of its culture and language, and has constantly sought to defend it against the encroachment of the English language and the habits of the US, which are often dismissively referred to as “Les Anglo-Saxons.”
Riester made his plea to stick to French in a Twitter post published late on Sunday and marking the 25th anniversary of a law governing the use of French on television and radio.
Photo: Reuters
Critics yesterday rounded on his patriotic views, saying Macron regularly uses English idioms, such as the phrase “Start-Up Nation” to promote French innovation and technology, as do many of France’s top businesses.
“Macron himself uses Anglophone slogans!” Didier VanStaevel said, replying on Twitter to Riester, while others pointed to Macron having referred once to democracy as being a “bottom-up” system.
Cinema executive Christophe Courtois said that top French companies regularly use English slogans rather than French, such as Renault’s adverts titled “Never Too Much” and Air France’s “France Is In The Air” posters.
The 1994 Toubon law made the use of French mandatory in all TV broadcasts, meaning all foreign-language programs are dubbed, while radio stations must play at least 40 percent of French music for most of the day.
“The Loi Toubon is 25 years old! It’s the interpretation of article 2 of our Constitution — “The Language of the Republic is French.” Our daily lives would be so different without this simple demand — say things in French!” Riester wrote.
His tweet called for vigilance applying the law and was accompanied by a big picture of the country’s national flag, the “Tricolore.”
Ministry officials could not be immediately reached for further comment on the matter.
In 2006, then-French president Jacques Chirac walked out of an EU summit briefly as a form of protest, when the French head of the EU’s industry lobby addressed leaders of the bloc in English.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS