French and EU

[turkcyp]

I know it has got nothing to do with Cyprus, but I just can not help myself. This anglophobia among French is seriously starting to look funny.

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'Deeply shocked' Chirac defends summit snub of English speech

BRUSSELS (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac defended his eye-brow-raising exit from an EU summit session, accusing the French head of Europe's employer union of piquing French pride by daring to speak in English.

An ardent defender of the French tongue, Chirac said he had been "deeply shocked" to hear English on the lips of the Frenchman in a speech at the two-day European summit.

"I was deeply shocked that a Frenchman would speak at the council table in English," he told journalists, explaining for the first time his abrupt walkout when the summit opened on Thursday.

"That's the reason why the French delegation and myself left so as not to have to listen to that," he added.

Chirac's surprise exit was one of the few incidents to spice up an otherwise staid summit focused on agreeing a joint EU energy strategy and reviving the bloc's economy.

When Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, head of the UNICE employers federation, started his speech to the EU's 25 leaders, Chirac interrupted and asked why he was speaking in English, according to a French official.

"I'm going to speak in English because that is the language of business," replied Seilliere, former chief of the French employers' group MEDEF, which has been at odds with the government recently.

Raising eyebrows among his EU counterparts, Chirac stood up and left the session with Finance Minister Thierry Breton and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy in tow.

Chirac, 73, and his ministers returned only after Seilliere finished his address.

Other European leaders shrugged off Chirac's attempt to defend French pride.

"Europe has other worries and it's a waste of time to have responded to such questions," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who is usually a stout francophile.

Taking a shot at Seilliere, he added: "I cannot cease to be amazed that while our French friends invite us to speak French many of their top officials not in government are more than happy to speak in approximative English".

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, claiming not to have noticed Chirac's departure, tried to strike a light note about the incident, saying with a smile: "People do get up and go for all sorts of reasons."

To the consternation of Paris, English has overtaken French as the European Union's lingua franca, especially since it welcomed 10 new member states, mostly former Soviet communist bloc states in eastern Europe, in May 2004.

French speakers regularly complain that official documents increasingly appear in English and only later in French, which is along with German an official language for EU institutions.

Although English, French and German are the official languages of the EU institutions, by tradition EU leaders speak in their own language at summits through simultaneous interpretation.

Rubbing salt into the wounds Seilliere inflicted on French pride, the Brussels correspondent for Britain's eurosceptic Sun newspaper, Michael Lea, approached Chirac at the end of Friday's news conference with a small English-language phrase book for tourists.

"This is a present from your friends at The Sun," Lea told the French leader, who first looked puzzled, then smiled as he slipped the little tome into his pocket.

The tabloid waged a provocative campaign against Chirac in the run-up to the Iraq conflict in 2003, branding him "Le ver" or the worm.

[CY]

I read this too today.
I personally don't have anything against the French and I don't have any prejudices against them, unlike many people, but it's silly things like this that make people really dislike the French.

I'm really for people learning lots of languages but in reality, no one can deny that English has become the "business" language of Europe. Surely EU summits should be places where arrogant nationalistic thought is be put a side and working together instead, is promoted.

[cypezokyli]

i do admire the french in this matter. they are leading in the struggle against having their society americanized... unlike germans...or cypriots.

but there are always limits , and in this case chirac has crossed those limits and is walking in the area of stupidity.

[repulsewarrior]

Very funny!!!

[Khan]

These people are the old guard of the EU. People like Chirac still think France is the EU.

[Dhavlos]

yeh...to be fair it would make more sense if these kind of summits where just in english...it would cost a lot less visavis translating costs!

[Khan]

Although the summit is the wrong time to assert French pride, like cypez i do admire the way they look after their culture. Watching Turkish TV you'd be ashamed at the amount of English words they now use.

[cypezokyli]

[Dhavlos]

yeh that is tru. i do think that it would be a lot simpler, howecver like you said...the eu is about diversity...so it would be against their principles.


youve made me think now...

I think that it is the way the french go about trying to make french this really big/important thing., when it isnt, that really annoys people, and makes them quite anti french. but then again, good on them to try stop the americanisation of their culture. if only we could learn from them in that respect.

[cypezokyli]

i mean even at a stupid competition like eurovision, they have the guts to stick on principles , sing a song in their own language , knowing they will loose.
it is sth to admire imo.
are you proud bc greece or turkey won that competition with songs that had nothing to do with greece or turkey?

they are resisting , in language, music, movies etc. and someone should finally do that.

its not about nationalism imo. when i met with french people, they didnot demand from me to speak french. instead they spoke english to me.

i find it bad when i would go to a place in france and they cannot speak basic english , or understand sth of the kind : i want a beer.
BUT , i find extremelly annoying when i am in cyprus and at some places i have to speak in english when i want to order a drink.

the first is bad. the second is worse.

[Dhavlos]

yes i agree completely.

Im a linguist so i hate it when people say 'just make everyone speak english'...it completely destroys culture etc...and like in Eurovision, it would be better if they sung in their own language.

[turkcyp]

[city]

well, I have no experience with that as I have never been in France (yet).
However, what I do know is that this nationalism/pride goes as far as the air-traffic controller at CDG speak French! It has caused a number of accidents in the past as foreign pilots could not understand what was said around them to other airplanes crews. THIS imo is going definitely too far!

[thebrix]