‘Anti-English’ candidate stands for election in Brittany

A candidate in the French parliamentary elections is running on an ‘anti-English language’ ticket, saying that French is being “mistreated and replaced” by “the language of capitalist business”.

Gilliatt de Staërck is the candidate for the far-left Pôle de renaissance communiste en France (PRCF) party in Fougères, Ille-et-Vilaine (Brittany).

The PRCF is a distinct entity from the French Communist Party (PCF) and is not part of the wider left-wing alliance of the Nouveau Front Populaire.

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French being ‘mistreated and replaced’

Mr Staërck’s campaign policies focus on ‘building up the French language’ against what he believes is the creep of English into French.

“Throughout society, particularly in companies, the all-English language of capitalist business is tending to replace French, even though French is constitutionally the language of the Republic and of the workplace,” he said.

He said that “in advertising, in employment, at work, in the street and even in the slogans used by the Elysée Palace to promote France in the world, our national language, rich as it is in history… is being mistreated and replaced”. 

“Yet, it is in French, and in very precise terms, that workers and their trade unions negotiate company and branch agreements…all our fellow citizens speak French, unlike the Europeanised elites,” he said.

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French language policies

Mr de Staërck has shared his policies to “defend, strengthen and develop the French language”, across business, industry, legislation, defence, and even music.

These include: 

• Strengthening the Toubon Law (a 1994 law designed to protect France's linguistic heritage).

• Legally requiring - barring exceptional circumstances - that French is the language of work, services, trade, education, public services, administrations, and official institutions.

• The rejection of “incessant reminders” from Brussels “to invalidate French language legislation in order to promote all-English under the guise of free competition”.

• The promotion of French as the language of teaching and university, except in very exceptional cases.

• Fines for employers, media and advertisers who promote the ‘English-only language’ policies

• The creation of a permanent fund for French-language creation in all fields (science, music, film, technology, etc.).

• Quotas for French-language songs will be raised.

• State and local authority subsidies to be reserved for songs in French or in the country's various regional languages. The same will apply to films and shows.

• French will once again be the sole language of the army, with the exception of translation requirements.

• All scientific articles must first appear in French, even if they are translated into several languages, so that they can be understood by any French-speaker with the necessary scientific skills.

Mr de Staërck has also said that regional languages would be held up as “an indivisible heritage of the nation”. Regional authorities would be “given the means to teach regional languages”, he said, as soon as there is sufficient demand in a given department.

He also said that exceptions would be made to his ‘all-French’ policies when it comes to Creole languages and those from the French overseas territories.

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European Union ‘squandering our heritage’

The European Union, Mr de Staërck says, is “a driving force behind the expansion of this single-language [English] policy”, and added that this is “squandering our national linguistic heritage”. 

“By seeking to impose English as the language of the continent, even though the United Kingdom is no longer part of the EU, the European Commission is seeking to crush the cultural exceptions that still resist its capitalist and supranational logic,” he said.

‘No tribute to Shakespeare’

Mr de Staërck’s stance is not necessarily ‘anti-English’ per se. 

Instead, he is calling instead for a better use of all languages, a wider promotion of French, and added that the English used in French is not of good quality in any case. 

“It is an English that is itself impoverished and pays little tribute to the language of Shakespeare,” he said.