The relationship between colonialism and the French language

Despite some of the major events in colonial history happening over a century ago, the influence of colonial powers on their post-colonial colonies is still a major conversation today. With 300 million French speakers existing in the world and being the 5th most spoken language globally (Chutel, 2020), it is evident that France has been able to maintain its language’s prominence in the world outside of the European bubble. With more French speakers existing outside of France (La langue française dans le monde, 2019), it is no surprise that it still holds so much global status and as stated by Crystal (2003, p.5), “A language has traditionally become an international language for one chief reason: the power of its people – especially their political and military power”, also referred to by Wilson as ‘hard power’ (2008, p. 114). It is then no surprise that English has also been able to hold global language status, undeniably a result of the past colonial empire that Britain was able to maintain for years, which established its military power globally as well as America’s political power post-WWII with international establishments such as NATO in 1949 post-WWII (Why was NATO founded?, 2017) making English a perfect working language between distant nations and establishments such as the EU in which English is predominantly the most used working language among non-native speakers (Europeans and their languages, 2012). Therefore, to fully investigate the reasons behind the current global status of France, it is important to first focus on its establishment of hard power through colonialism. After which, how France has maintained its global status through other means such as soft power can then be elaborated. Indeed, one of the methods that have helped France maintain its status is the focus on cultural diplomacy, a key tool France has used to help maintain their global status. It is also the case that a lot of France’s (and Britain’s) former colonies still have a working relationship with their past colonial powers therefore making it helpful to both parties that the official language of the past European empires is still used to help aid communication, even in cases where the European language is no longer the official language of the past colony. Therefore, in this essay, analysing the causes behind the current global status of France, the use of the Francophonie and its evolution will also be analysed, as it is a clear example of the aforementioned point. An analysis of the postcolonialism period and post-WWII will be provided to better understand the impact on the status of the French language. Finally, the role of Soft power and cultural diplomacy and its implication on the current status of French in the 21st century will be investigated.

Firstly, as mentioned, to discuss how France has current global status we must first look at the history of how it was able to spread so vastly, to begin with. The establishment of the French-speaking empire in various regions worldwide such as the Caribbean, Asia and Africa (La langue française, 2019), meant that its language was able to spread through hard power such as military power and this enabled economic and political security through it. During the years 1885 – 1914, the scramble for Africa led the major European powers of the time to fight for their prominence in the land of many natural resources as “Africa was full of raw materials that could be exploited to fuel the industrial revolution” (St Johns College). All of these European powers saw the economic potential in the continent as trade had already existed between the two previously, however, to monopolise on maximum profit, stronger military power would be needed. The argument for the economic gain of the colonisation of Africa was popularised in the British Empire, especially by J.A. Hobson who claimed, “finance is... the governor of the imperial engine”. The French, of course, followed suit in their conquest of Africa, often in competition with their historical rival Great Britain (A. Webster et al, 1998). 

However, the conversation about the implementation of French in Africa cannot be discussed without mentioning one of the biggest contributors at the time. Belgium, although not having as many colonies in number compared to France in the European expansion of Africa, was able to colonise part of the centre of Africa that is Congo (Belgian-Congo), now known as The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, previously known as Zaire) with the support of other western countries (Pakenham, 1992, p.253-5) while the Republic of Congo (French-Congo) going to its own previous coloniser, France. Leopold II’s colonisation of Congo is a harsh example of military power imposing itself onto a nation however the implementation of French is an important topic of discussion as although successful and therefore was supportive of the political stability of Belgium’s colonial power, the attempt of the eradication of regional languages was never as successful as seen in other French colonies despite the Democratic Republic of Congo being the largest population outside France to speak the French language with 77 million speakers (Bada. F, 2018). Despite being such a large country, DRC has been able to maintain its use of regional languages, while French still works as an official language, this also being the case in the Republic of Congo. This, in particular, has been a main concern for the DRC, as the use of the four national languages with younger generations has significantly decreased, with most new generations being more comfortable in French and not as fluent in their “native tongue” (Africanews, 2017). The maintenance of these national languages has been helped by the language policy enacted in 2009 which makes use of one of the national languages in the early stages of formal education, depending on which language is spoken more often in that geographic region (GPE Secretariat, 2020). However, the official use and connection to the French language has historically caused controversy in the country, specifically post its independence from Belgium. Famously, former president Mobutu in 1966 “changed the name of the country, cities, and streets to eliminate European names” as well as “ordered all Zairians to have authentic names, those which refer to their ancestors” (Adelman, 1975). This change in the perception of the French language heavily retorts the efforts the Belgians made to impart the French language as one of prestige as Mobutu’s efforts to eradicate the presence of the French language in Congo’s culture was in opposition to the idea the language reflected that of a higher status than the traditional languages of the country. However, the French language maintained the official language of the country, arguably to maintain working communication with its past coloniser and former Francophonie colonies to still maintain a working relationship for economic aid and trading. The same can be said for some of Britain’s past colonies, an example being Ghana and Nigeria, although still use English as an official language have maintained their regional languages and are still used as a main form of communication in different tribes and regions of the countries (Bamgboṣe, 1976, p.18). However, the biggest factor in the preservation of European languages such as French or English can be argued to be the multitude of traditional languages that exist within African countries that inevitably made it harder for their governments to use one as an official language of the said country without it causing political unrest. 

Many traditional languages in Africa were linked to kingdoms and tribes that were once separate but after European colonisation, these languages were spoken in countries that were formed of these merged kingdoms and tribes. Therefore, using one traditional language (often of many) would appear as an act of favouritism towards a particular group of people, as well as unfunctional as these languages are often geographically used and not universally understood or spoken. Therefore, to maintain political peace within the country often maintaining the European language that was already universally understood helped maintain stability (Bamgboṣe 1976, p.17). These series of events help support the case that colonisation helped deep root the use of these European languages in their colonies, not just in Africa but also in the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific Islands. However, since most former European colonies have been independent for many years and the social climate around the topic of colonisation has been shifted, how has the French language maintained its global status when several former colonies no longer depend as heavily on their past colonisers for political stability?

Due to the economic strain a lot of these colonies still face at the expense of the colonisation, a working relationship is still kept between most former colonies and its past colonisers, therefore said European language such as French, is kept to make communication easier and maintain political stability in these countries. As aforementioned, the maintenance of the French language was often used to keep political stability in the country as the language was universally understood. This, in turn, however, also meant that former colonies could communicate with each other due to them having a shared language with their former colonisers. This leads the topic of conversation to how France has maintained global status due to monopolising its use of soft power. Although used more actively now, the use of soft power for the French language is not new. The use of French exclusively in salons during 18th century France by higher class people led to the association of the language of social prestige which inevitably made the public perception of French to be of high status and encouraged citizens to learn and speak the language to seem more “respectable” in society (Llewellyn and Thompson, 2020). This use of soft power plants a strong cultural seed for the use of French to try and assimilate to those seen as higher in society although as mentioned in some Francophonie countries often post-independence of their respective French-speaking power, citizens would rebuke this ideology as Taiwo states “to set off our own revolution, we had first to put off our borrowed dress, of assimilation, and affirm our being, that is, our negritude” (1967, p.45). It is also inevitable that the language of the people that take hold of a country would then be associated as a language of power encouraging citizens to speak the language of people who are deemed as powerful, a “colonial elite” as well as needing to communicate with their colonisers to try and fight for independence, therefore creating the use of a working language (Prah, 2009). 

Furthermore, another added benefit of the maintenance of the French language in post-colonial countries is that often these national languages do not have an official written form, as was the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and therefore the use of French to produce literature helped with the eradication of said national languages, as French would be spoken consistently in schools, workplaces and eventually informally with members of society in private households (source). In other post-colonial countries such as Mauritius, Madagascar, Haiti, and the Ivory Coast, the French language is also maintained but takes up a different form in Creole that becomes more of a personal identity to these nations but due to the social status of the European French, it is maintained as a high variety form of language “being reserved for formal situations and associated with high prestige” (Migge and Léglise 2007, p.23). The continued use of French in these countries internationally helps maintain political stability as the language can be spoken and understood universally across the country, therefore being used in education and professional institutions, which makes the official status of the language more concrete in the country’s linguistic identity. It also means that fellow Francophonie can communicate with each other providing political and economic support, meaning the French language once again becomes a tool within hard power however with the maintenance of cultural soft power.

Moreover, with a collective of French-speaking countries, the initiative of the Francophonie is brought to mind. Since France could not rely on its empire as a hard power source, the use of soft power through cultural diplomacy helps maintain political and economic stability which is a sustainable method to maintain the global status of the language. Cummings (2003) describes cultural diplomacy as “the exchange of ideas, information, art and other aspects of culture among nations and their people in order to foster mutual understanding” So, with a vast number of post-colonial francophone countries, France then took the initiative to use the shared linguistic culture of the French language to unite these countries. This was ever more a pressing issue post-WWII when the impact of the USA was overwhelmingly present in Europe and France’s reputation was on the line. With the introduction of international organisations such as the UN (United Nations) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the financial support the U.S was able to provide after the war meant that the English language became more important for communication across nations, especially within Europe, although as a working language but culturally throughout nations the American influence was also taking place through mediums such as films from Hollywood while the French reputation had been damaged from the devastation of the war. Therefore, the establishment of the international organisation of the Francophonie in 1970 (Francophonie, 2018), meant that non-European Francophone nations could stay in communication with each other with the foundation of cultural solidarity that was shared through the French language. This use of soft power was key to how France has been able to maintain its global status currently as well as the establishment of French institutions, schools, and organisations that civilians within the Francophonie organisation would have access to due to their shared language, with many francophone countries being heavily impacted after colonisation it was of benefit to them for citizens to be able to gain a higher education and employment opportunities within Europe, possibly providing a better quality of life.

With the rise in power of French-speaking countries such as Canada and Switzerland (Studin, 2020), the influence of the French language has led to an association of success and power comparable to its English rival. Similar to how the French language could be associated with higher status during colonisation in the French and Belgian empires of the late 19th century, the success of these French-speaking nations means that currently the French language is still associated with prestige. The influence of French culture through media also leads new generations to want to learn the language with 120 million students of the French language living in non-francophone countries (M. Wood, 2019). The use of cultural diplomacy has been instrumental in how the French language has been able to persevere and maintain its global status. The foundation however was set by its global expansion during colonialism and the hard effect it had on francophone countries' own source of hard power, according to Crystal (2003, p.3) “A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country”. Even postcolonialism the French language could be maintained through cultural solidarity, whether with fellow francophone colonies or with France or Belgium who could then provide the economic, political, and social support these countries needed. The threat of the English language and the crush on the French reputation post-WWII meant that the use of hard power was no longer an option to maintain the global status of the language, its international colonial roots, however, were deep enough that soft power via cultural diplomacy was able to help boost the appeal of the language and maintain its current global status. Even though cultural diplomacy “is not a bandage to be applied after the damage is done”. (Ibid cited in Kitsou, 2013, p.25) the French language has maintained its positive image among millions across the world.