U.S. English Foundation Research

FRANCE

General Information

Capital:

Paris 2,152,423 (1990 est.)

Area:

543,965 sq km (210,026 sq mi) including the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean

Form of government

Republic

GDP per capita

Purchasing power parity-$23,300 (1999 est.)

Population

58,978,172 (July 1999 est.)

Ethnic composition

French - 93.6%

German (mostly Alsatian) - 2.6%

Breton - 1.0%

Catalan - 0.4%

Arabic - 2.5%

Other - 3.9%

Updated (March 2004)

No official statistics exist in regard to the number of languages spoken in France and an expression "minority language" cannot be found in French political or legal vocabularies. The expression most commonly used instead is "regional language". A term "foreign languages" is used for languages of cultural minorities (Arabic, Portuguese, etc.).

According to the Bernard Cerquiglini's 1999 Report on Languages (Les langues de la France),¹ there are 24 regional languages spoken in metropolitan France (with Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan and Corsican being the most widely used).

Source: Minority-language Related Broadcasting and Legislation in the OSCE, Program in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP), Center for Socio-Legal Studies, Wolfson College, Oxford University & Institute for Information Law (IViR) (http://www.ivir.nl/index-english.html), Universiteit van Amsterdam (Study commissioned by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities), April 2003, edited by T. McGonagle (IViR), B. Davis Noll & M. Price (PCMLP), http://www.ivir.nl/publications/mcgonagle/Minority-language%20broadcasting.pdf

¹ Bernard Cerquiglini is a Director of the National Institute of the French Language. The report was released by the Department of Education and the Department of Culture & Communication in April 1999.

Official Language(s)

French

Minority Language(s)

Rapidly declining regional dialects and languages (Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish, Occitan, Oïl)

Top of page