The most established French language school in South-West France!

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF FRENCH SPEAKERS

" For the growth of the Western culture, the French linguistic inheritance is perhaps as important as that of ancient Greek and Latin."

Northern France, where the combination of Roman and Germanic traditions replaced the ancient Greco-Roman culture and civilization in the western part of Europe, was the core around which the Western world was formed. French was the language which for centuries was used by educated people all over Europe, gradually replacing Latin in international communications. As a result thousands of French words were absorbed into European languages, both in the western and eastern part of the continent. For the growth of the Western culture, the French linguistic inheritance is perhaps as important as that of ancient Greek and Latin.

EUROPE

Switzerland
French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland (along with German, Italian, and Romansh) and is spoken in the part of Switzerland called Romandie. French is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population.

Belgium
French is the official language of Wallonia (excluding the East Cantons, which are German-speaking) and one of the two official languages of the Brussels-Capital Region where it’s spoken by the majority of the population though not usually as their primary language. In total, native French-speakers make up about 40% of the country's population with the remaining 60% speaking Dutch. Of the latter, 59% claim to speak French as a second language. French is thus known by an estimated 75% of Belgians, either as a mother tongue, or as a second or third language.

Monaco and Andorra
Although Monégasque is the national language of the Principality of Monaco, French is the only official language, and French nationals make up some 47% of the population.

Catalan is the official language of Andorra, however French is commonly used due to the proximity to France. French nationals make up 7% of the population.

Italy
French is an official language with Italian in the province of Aosta Valley. There are also a number of Franco-Provençal dialects spoken in the province, although they do not have official recognition.

Luxembourg
French is one of three official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg along with German and Luxemburgish. Luxembourg's education system is trilingual with the first years of primary school in Luxembourgish before changing to German. In secondary school the language changes to French.

The Channel Islands
French is an official language in Jersey and Guernsey, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands, although they are separate entities. Both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative capacity.

THE AMERICAS

Canada

French is one of Canada's two official languages along with English. About 7 million Canadians are native French-speakers, of whom 6 million live in Quebec. By law, the federal government must operate and provide services in both English and French, proceedings of the Parliament of Canada must be translated into both these languages, and most products sold in Canada must have labelling in both languages.

Overall, about 13% of Canadians have knowledge of French only, while 18% have knowledge of both English and French. In contrast, over 82% of the population of Quebec speaks French natively, and almost 96% speak it as either their first or second language. It has been the sole official language of Quebec since 1974 and Montréal is the second largest French speaking city in the world.

The only other province that recognizes French as an official language is New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual, like the nation as a whole. In Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba, French does not have full official status, although the provincial governments do provide some French-language services in all communities where significant numbers of Francophones live. Canada's three northern territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) all recognise French as an official language.

The French spoken in Canada today differs from standard modern French as a consequence of Quebec’s political isolation from France after the defeat of French colonial armies by British forces in the Battle of Montreal during the French and Indian War (1756-1763).

The influence of English on the vocabulary and syntax of Québecquois French has been massive, especially since the introduction of radio and television. Pronunciation differences relative to Parisian French are explained also by the primarily French-Atlantic-coastal origins (largely rural) of many of the 17th century French colonists of Quebec, whose mother tongue was a non-Parisian dialect of French.

Haiti

French is an official language of Haiti, although mostly spoken by the upper class and as the language of higher education, while Haitian Creole is more widely spoken as a mother tongue.

Creole is a term derived from the Spanish word criolla denoting a person “born in the colonies”. The creole of Haiti is a 17th century derivative of the language of the French planters who imported slaves from African tribal leaders to work the sugar plantations of France’s colony on the island of Hispaniola. The creole represents a grammatically simplified “practical” version of French that arose to fill a need for communication among Afro-Haitians of differing tribal origins whose mother tongues were mutually unintelligible. The pronunciation differences relative to standard French reflect the sounds foreign to French that were present among the African tongues of the original speakers. Haitian creole is today a written language, and is used as the country’s other official language.

USA

Although it has no official recognition on a federal level, French is the third most spoken language in the USA, after English and Spanish, and the second most-spoken in the states of Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Louisiana is home to two distinct dialects, Cajun French and Creole French.

FRENCH OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

French is also the official language in France's overseas territories of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

AFRICA

A majority of the world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to the 2007 report by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 Francophone African countries can speak French either as a first or second language.

French is mostly a second language in Africa, but in some areas it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and in Libreville, Gabon. It is impossible to speak of a single form of African French, but rather of diverse forms of African French which have developed due to the contact with many indigenous African languages.

In the territories of the Indian Ocean, the French language is often spoken alongside French-derived creole languages, the major exception being Madagascar. There, a Malayo-Polynesian language (Malagasy) is spoken alongside French. The French language has also met competition with English since English has been the official language in Mauritius and the Seychelles for a long time and has recently become an official language of Madagascar.

Various reforms have been implemented in recent decades in Algeria to improve the status of Arabic relative to French, especially in education.

While the predominant European language in Egypt is English, French is considered to be a more sophisticated language by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes, so an educated Egyptian will learn French in addition to English in their education. The perception of sophistication may be related to the use of French as the royal court language of Egypt during the nineteenth century.

French is also the official language of Mayotte and Réunion, two overseas territories of France located in the Indian Ocean.

MIDDLE EAST

French was the official language in Lebanon along with Arabic until 1941 when the country declared independence from France. French is still used on bank notes (along with Arabic) and on official buildings as well as being widely used for administrative purposes. It is taught in schools as a primary language along with Arabic.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

French is an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia. In colonial Vietnam the elite also spoke French.

INDIA

French has de-jure official status in the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry, along with the regional languages Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

OCEANIA

French is a second official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu along with France's territories of French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and New Caledonia.

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