Africa: Would the Future speak French?

The answer of the report titled “The French Language in the World 2010” says yes, mostly in Africa, but only if we do what it takes. Indeed the report is described as the most rigorous study ever conducted on the issue. Coordinated by the Observatory of the French language (OIF), the study benefited from the particular contribution of Laval University, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The data were compiled by 40 scientists from a dozen countries. “These are the most reliable figures ever obtained,” said one official. According to Clément Duhaime from Quebec, the report’s findings show that “the French will remain a major international language” and its future will play out in Africa.”

The African continent is in fact the only place where the French language is progressing, thanks to the schooling progress within the african youth and to the huge efforts of the central governments and the international organisations. Right now and according to the OIF report, half of the French-speaking community is living in the sub-Saharan and North Africa, and by 2050, nearly 85 % (9 out of ten) of the 715 million of the French-speaking worldwide will be Africans. It means also that more than two million new teachers over the next decade will be needed to meet the demand of teaching, and the challenge is to find the strategy to meet that appetite for the French language. But if we find the way to solve the pending resource problem, the challenge could be answered in concentrating all the resources in priority to education, as done in the 60s by Quebec, in order to train enough teachers and instructors and ensure to the many African students access to higher education. “The very well expansion of the French language in Africa is undoubtedly the “good news” of the OIF report, which noted that the number of people able to speak, read and write, in Burkina Faso and Mali, has been multiplied by five. The bad news is the decline of French in Europe, where the teaching of the language of Molière fell by 17 %, since three years ago, in favor of English and Spanish. In America, the French recorded during the same period a slight decrease of one percent.

On the Internet, the French is ranking third, behind English and German. The report has noted that the teaching of French has also increased over the past three years in the Middle East about 13 %, and of 6 % in Asia and Oceania.