French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

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French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Cenwalh » Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:50 pm

From Ràdio Arrels (translation from Catalan)
The French deputies pass the 'Molac Law' for the protection and promotion of minority languages
The French deputies [members of the French National Assembly] have adopted a law for the protection and promotion of so called regional languages.
The law will permit teaching in a linguistic immersion environment, and protect bilingual signage. It will also allow the use of characters used in those languages in names, such as accents in Catalan and some characters unique to Breton.
The law, which was backed by the Breton senator Paul Molac, has been passed with a large majority of 247 votes in favour to 76 against.

As a bit of background, France has been quite unaccepting of languages other than French since the French revolution. Its policies have included punishing and shaming children for speaking their native languages in schools (a policy called Vergonha [Occitan for shame]) which has in part led to the almost complete destruction of languages such as Breton, Occitan and Catalan in France.

See also VilaWeb's article for more detail on the law
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:29 pm

The Corsicans will be pleased. Well, the ones still speaking it anyway. Maybe there'll be a renaissance.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby nooj » Fri May 21, 2021 3:23 pm

Bad news. Two months ago the defenders of the French languages celebrated the Molac law proposal which was comfortably voted for by a majority of the deputies in the French Assembly, although opposed by the French government itself. Just before the law could be promulgated and put into action, 61 French deputies from the LREM political coalition put in an appeal (you need 60 or 61 to make the appeal) and sent the law to the Constitutional Council, claiming that one of the articles, which was about making towns that could not offer classes in a French language other than French pay some money to send students to another town where they could get this education, could contravene the Constitution. The appeal is itself a subject of fierce controversy. Some deputies claimed they were hood-winked into signing it, and afterwards withdrew from it. Unfortunately, post facto withdrawls do not invalidate the appeal. And there are claims that it was the French Education Minister himself, Jean-Michel Blanquer and fierce opponent of the French languages, who pushed for the appeal which would put into question the whole legal separation of powers.

The Constitutional Council has today released their decision. It has accepted as legal the part that was being challenged by the 61 deputies, and astoundingly, gone after the other part of the law about immersion education in French languages other than French, which was not being challenged by anyone.

This law was supposed to normalise immersion education into the French public education system. But in ruling that immersion education contravenes Article 2 of the French Constitution that states French is the language of the French Republic (an article that was amended into the Constitution in 1992, ostensibly or at least in part to combat the 'threat' of English), the CC has also unwittingly or wittingly put into danger the whole system of immersion education in not only public schools, but also private and associative immersive schools that have existed for around 50 years in France, ensuring quality education in and through French languages like Occitan, Breton, Catalan and Basque. By stating that immersion education in a language other than French is unconstitutional, they've put into deep danger the contracts that the National Education has with private and associative schools as well as things like paid salaries for teachers.

This is a decision that has far-reaching consequences for the survival of the languages of France, which on the European continent are all in various degrees of endangerement. Most are severely endangered, although we shouldn't forget that there are many French languages outside of Europe, many of which are also endangered because of French, such as in French Polynesia and New Caledonia. Without being too dramatic, it sets back the cause of French languages in France some 50 years when they are already hanging on by their fingernails.

The Constitutional Council also rejected a part of the law that allowed for the use of diacritic signs that exist in French languages other than French in official documents. Thus, names like Iñaki (Basque) or Fañch (Breton), the names of many French citizens in their languages, will not be accepted on birth certificates, death certificates etc.

Today is the World Day for Cultural Diversity as well as the start of Ar Redadeg, a relay race to fund the immersion Breton schools known as Diwan, the same schools whose immersion models have been declared unconstitutional by France. Irony of ironies, the CC's decision falls on today. I've also been aware that the declaration of unconstitutionality of immersion schools could also touch the international high schools that use immersion in English. I'm not sure if the CC knew about this.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun May 23, 2021 10:46 am

And why am I not surprised. Once again centralised power usurps so called democracy or that is, government independently renders yet another decision conclusive while it's the little people that grant these, these... representatives their perceived power. It's high time people went their own way and made their own decisions despite what some few think they know what's best for the rest because those few are clearly not behaving in the best interests of all their peoples. Vive la France, vive toutes les langues de France !
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby nooj » Mon May 24, 2021 8:55 pm

It's worth reading this Twitter post of Antton Curutcharry, President of the Public Office for the Basque Language and Vice-President of the Linguistic Policy department in the North Basque Country. He's responsible for overseeing the two languages Basque and Gascon (Occitan) present in the North Basque Country.

The following translation was done using DeepL, because I can't be bothered translating it myself but with some slight modifications made by me.

"The language of the Republic is French... to the exclusion of all other territorial languages". This is how the Constitutional Council has been telling us since Friday that the Article 2 of the Constitution should be understood. Not to the exclusion of English anyway. Since our national identity cards are now going to be produced in bilingual format, French-English, without the government or the constitutionalists raising any eyebrows... And to think that I was told a hundred times that this Article 2 had been added to the fundamental law to protect the French language from the hegemonic omnipresence of English.. I didn't understand that the real threat was coming from our 51,000 Basque speakers... That's how France goes, strong with the weak, and weak with the strong. To crush the small and the moribund, but to accompany the giant along in its domination... in the name of the French cultural exception, I suppose... Today, the wound is deep. It hurts, it hurts a lot. The wound is raw. There are millions of us that are hurt by it. For my part, I claim here, loud and clear, my inalienable right to live, communicate, exchange in Basque. This right is outside the constitution, it is above it. It is my right as a human being. Inhabitant of this planet. Nobody will take it away from me. French is my mother tongue, Basque my father tongue. In the name of which text is it that only one of the two languages has the right to be used in school? But, what is the use of Basque language, we are often asked. I always answer: it is used for speaking. Like the French language. But today, by censoring the immersive system in education, the only system to provide children with a good quality Basque, the Nine condemn our poor languages, already weakened and marginalized, to be poorly mastered, poorly spoken. Sub-languages in tatters, which are exhibited for local folklore, because little by little, our streets no longer hear them sing... The Wise Men, powerful with the weak, condemn us to survive "in palliative care", as once was said by a mayor of a very small mountain municipality used to fight for everything, to organize survival... I refuse. The Basque language pre-existed the French language. It has seen the arrival, then the extinction of Latin. It has survived all the regimes but is now in great difficulty. Through the National Education, the Republic has a historical debt towards the Basque language, and towards all the territorial languages which fight and struggle for life today. Children passing through the immersive system, associative, as well as public, are today engineers, journalists, doctors, lawyers, as well as craftsmen, traders, farmers, teachers. They live and express themselves perfectly well in Basque and in French. An out-of-touch minister, a Jacobin nationalist, an ideologue, reinforced by the iniquitous decision of the Constitutional Council, has managed to undermine what decades of militant struggles, political negotiations and institutional partnerships have built. This is totally unacceptable. We will have to find solutions, and not half measures. Because we will not back down. And there are many of us. And angry.


Ignore the part about Basque being older than French, which is not true. It is true that Basque has been in the geographical location where it currently is for far longer than French has been, but Basque as a language isn't older than the French language.

The Wise Men is a translation of the 'Sages', the name the media gives to the 9 members of the Constitutional Council.

It's noteworthy that the highest responsable member for linguistic policy in the North Basque Country feels that there is a serious, credible threat against the Basque language and is publically making a statement about it. And not using nice words either. There's a rally that's going to be held France wide by speakers of French languages and anyone who is interested on the 29th to protest about this recent decision. Make your voice heard.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 25, 2021 11:51 pm

nooj wrote:It is true that Basque has been in the geographical location where it currently is for far longer than French has been, but Basque as a language isn't older than the French language.


Isn't it? Wasn't Basque was in the area well before French (and any romance language)? Basque's origins are unknown, whereas French's are.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby nooj » Wed May 26, 2021 12:22 am

Well, the ancestor of French in the form of PIE was around somewhere, probably in present day Ukraine, when the ancestor of Basque...proto-Basque was around in what is present day Spain/France (it doesn't seem to have moved around very much). French as a language is as old as Basque in that sense. 6,000 years ago, you would have a language near the Black Sea region that would eventually give rise to many languages, one of which is French. At the same time, at the opposite side of Europe, you would also have a language that would eventually give rise to Basque. None of the two languages would look anything like today's French and Basque, of course.

French IS a newer language than Basque in the Basque Country in the sense that it started as a language only spoken in the north part of France and slowly moved down. Up until a couple of hundred years ago, French was simply unknown to the vast majority of Basques living in what is today the North Basque Country. Similarly, you can call Navajo an 'older language' than English, if you mean that Navajo has been in North America for longer than English.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 26, 2021 12:58 am

Clearly I have much to learn about French's origins. From Ukraine 6,000 years ago... I feel an Asterix moment coming on.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Saim » Wed May 26, 2021 2:26 am

Le Baron wrote:Clearly I have much to learn about French's origins. From Ukraine 6,000 years ago... I feel an Asterix moment coming on.


That's what it means to be "Indo-European"; i.e. they are thought to share a common ancestor which can be reconstructed using the comparative method. The whole Ukraine thing is just our best guess as to where the people who spoke the ancestor of modern French (and also most other languages of Europe, northern India and parts of the Middle East) lived.

The point is that besides some sign languages and Creole languages (and arguably Israeli Hebrew), which were observed as coming into existence in modern times, most languages presumably could trace their ancestry back to an unbroken chain of varieties that extends into prehistory. They may all ultimately come from a common source, just one that can't be reconstructed due to the time depths involved making any cognates entirely unrecognisable. Or they may come from various sources that nonetheless emerged in a similar time period. It's something that we can't really know, so we can't say whether most modern languages (besides the exceptions I've mentioned) are older or younger than any other ones.
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Re: French National Assembly passes bill for the protection and promotion of minority languages

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 26, 2021 5:02 pm

That seems like a very bold claim though. It would be like saying because the ancestors of English can be traced back to proto-Indo European, it is therefore judged to be older than Basque. Which seems to me a preposterous claim.

French as it is, is a combination of the residue of Latin conquest plus the influx of the Franks at a later date. So it is that "French" as a language didn't exist at all until that happened, no matter what antecedent input it has received because they were not French, they were something else.. Which makes it a good deal younger than Basque.
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