Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks English.

[Blackleaf]

Quelle horreur! Un francais parle l'anglais! Zut alors!

Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks English
Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:53 PM GMT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac briefly walked out of a European Union summit on Thursday when the French head of the EU's industry lobby addressed leaders of the bloc in English.

A French official said Chirac, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Finance Minister Thierry Breton left the room when Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, head of the UNICE business lobby, began speaking in "the language of business" at a summit session with the EU's so-called social partners -- employers and unions.

He missed the former head of the French employers' body urging the leaders to "resist national protectionism in order to avoid a negative domino effect" in the EU's internal market -- a veiled criticism of France and others who have sought to block cross-border takeovers.

Chirac returned after Seilliere had finished to hear another Frenchman, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, addressing the leaders in French.

Trichet, a former Bank of France governor, almost always speaks English at the Frankfurt-based ECB.

English, French and German are the working languages of the 25-nation bloc which has no single official language. All 20 languages of the member states are used at summits, ministerial meetings and in the European Parliament.

French once dominated the EU, but English has overtaken it since the bloc expanded to take in Nordic countries in the 1990s and east European members in 2004.

Paris has fought a rearguard battle to preserve French as a main working language in Brussels, sparing no expense to offer free or heavily subsidised language courses to officials and diplomats from the new member states as well as journalists.

today.reuters.co.uk . . .

 

[Machjo]

Thanks... but where's teh source?

 

[Finder]

Well I usually support the french but they have to grow up on this one. Well at least Chirac does.

 

[Jay]

That shows the strength of this so called union.

I doubt it will survive past 2020.

 

[Mogz]

So that's where Queerbec gets it from.....interesting.

 

[zoofer]

LMAO.
Maybe it will also be reported in English on France's version of CNN.
Only 4 hours is in French.

 

[Blackleaf]

Le Sun confronts Le Worm.


THE Sun presented French sulky Jacques Chirac with an English phrasebook yesterday to help him at EU summits.

Our correspondent Michael Lea cut past the French president’s astonished security team to hand over the book. Diplomatically speaking in French, he said: “Here is a small gift from your friends at The Sun.”

Chirac, who speaks perfect English, saw the funny side. As he popped the nine euro book into his pocket he said: “It’s about my level.”

But Chirac yesterday refused to apologise for throwing a wobbly on Thursday when a Frenchman spoke in English to EU leaders in Brussels.

PM Tony Blair looked on in astonishment as Chirac and two ministers walked out on top businessman Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, who said English was “the accepted business language of Europe today”.

An unrepentant Chirac said yesterday: “I was profoundly shocked. You cannot build the future of the world on a single language.”

thesun.co.uk

 

[I think not]

Re: RE: Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks Engli

An unrepentant Chirac said yesterday: “I was profoundly shocked. You cannot build the future of the world on a single language.”

Unless it's French?

 

[aeon]

keep talking guys, that will just convince me that i should be a separatist.

 

[darkbeaver]

Re: RE: Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks Engli

That shows the strength of this so called union.

I doubt it will survive past 2020.

Your little world will be gone before that Jay.

 

[Toro]

Re: RE: Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks Engli

keep talking guys, that will just convince me that i should be a separatist.

Why, so your President can look like a silly person by leaving an international conference because someone isn't speaking French? I'd be embarrassed if I were a citizen of France. Its a childish and petulant way for anyone, let alone the President of a country, to act. It certainly doesn't make France look like a county to emulate.

 

[Machjo]

Re: RE: Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks Engli

An unrepentant Chirac said yesterday: “I was profoundly shocked. You cannot build the future of the world on a single language.”

Unless it's French?

Good point. If France were actively defending multilingualism, then I could have accepted that attitude. But when France itself has adopted a policy of systematic assimilation of its local populations to French (to the extent that some of its local languages are now threatenned!), then it's just an issue of the pot calling the kettle black. When France sets an example on this front, then I'll follow. Here's some info on France's language policy:


http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery...sbid=lc03a&linktext=Language policy in France

By the way, if I'm not mystaken , the UK has done more to defend its local and native languages than has France.

 

[Machjo]

Here are just a few quotes presenting French language policy from http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery...sbid=lc03a&linktext=Language policy in France


"Third Republic
In the 1880s, the Third Republic sought to modernize France, and in particular to increase literacy and general knowledge in the population, especially the rural population, and established free compulsory primary education. The choice of French for education seemed natural, given that it was the only language widely spoken in France in which a sizeable number of newspapers and historical, scientific etc. books were available.

The only language allowed in primary school was French. All other languages were forbidden, even in the schoolyard, and transgressions were severely punished. In 1925, Anatole de Monzie, Minister of public education, stated that "for the linguistic unity of France, the Breton language must disappear." As a result, the speakers of minority languages began to be ashamed of their own language, and in the 1950s, many families stopped teaching their language to their children and tried to speak only French with them."

 

[Machjo]

And how's this nice quote representing France's commitment to multilingualism:

"Fifth Republic
After the first few minutes in the radio in the 1940s, the French State allowed in 1964 for the first time one and a half minutes of Breton on regional television. But even in 1972 president Georges Pompidou declared that 'there is no place for the regional languages and cultures in a France that intends to mark Europe deeply.'"

 

[Machjo]

And for those who think it's just history, they were still going on about assimilating everyone in France to French right up till 1999:

"The debate about the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
In 1999 the Jospin socialist government decided to sign the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and tried, without success, to have it ratified. The Constitutional Council of France declared that the implementation of the Charter would be unconstitutional since the Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French.

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European convention (ETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe, ratified and implemented by 17 States, but not by France (as of 2004)"

 

[Machjo]

And then the French denigrate their minority languages by calling them patois:

"As an example of what proponents of ratification considered racist and scornful, here is a sample quote from an article in Charlie Hebdo, a well-known satirical journal:

The aborigines are going to be able to speak their patois, oh sorry, their language, without being laughed at. And even keep their accent, that is their beret and their clogs"

 

[Machjo]

Ha, so much for commitment to multilingualism, pot... or is that kettle?

"Similarly, France, Andorra and Turkey are the only European countries that have not yet signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. This framework entered into force in 1998 and is now nearly compulsory to implement in order to be accepted in the European Union ."

 

[Machjo]

Nice to see France's minority languages to be alive and well, too:

"The non-French Oïl languages and Franco-Provençal are highly endangered. The other languages are still spoken but are all considered endangered.

In the 1950s, more than one million people spoke Breton as their main language. The countryside in western Brittany was still overwhelmingly Breton-speaking. Today, about 250,000 people are able to speak Breton (1 out of 6 people in the Breton-speaking area ); but most of them are old people, over 60 years old. The other languages have followed the same trend, even though Alsatian and Corsican have resisted better, and Occitan as followed still a worse trend."

 

[aeon]

Re: RE: Angry Chirac leaves summit as Frenchman speaks Engli

keep talking guys, that will just convince me that i should be a separatist.

Why, so your President can look like a silly person by leaving an international conference because someone isn't speaking French? I'd be embarrassed if I were a citizen of France. Its a childish and petulant way for anyone, let alone the President of a country, to act. It certainly doesn't make France look like a county to emulate.

Strangely i feel the same as chirac,there is tons of translator who are paid incredible amount of money to translate what you say in your native language in those kind of international conference, speaking french is an honor, and since most of the west speak mostly english, it is very important for french people to speak our native language as possible as we can.dont like it?? just use translator headphone, dont like to use those translator headphone??, then learn french simple as that.

 

[iamcanadian]

Who the FUCK do these French Racists think they are?

It is a culture of biggoted, arogant, whinning people that think they are better than everyone else because of a STUPID COMPLICATED EGOCENTRIC language.

French is the language of the STUCK-UP people with pickels in the arse.

It's about time that the non-french people of the world put them in their place as just another one or the many dying or dead languages and stop pandering to their GIRLYMAN Culture that cares so much about a silly language.