Laurent Pinsolle has been running the
free Gaullist blog
since 2007.
To discover
Michel Houellebecq: "A civilization which legalizes euthanasia loses all rights to respect"
In 1994 the Toubon law was passed to "
protect the French linguistic heritage
".
Already, the Constitutional Council had limited its scope to the public service.
Twenty-seven years later, it is so ineffective that our future identity card will be bilingual, and Globish is flourishing in many communications in our public services, not to mention the private sector.
France therefore needs a new law to restore French as the only language of communication in our country.
Fighting the globish invasion
The height has recently been reached by the addition of English on our identity card. In a strong forum, Mathieu Bock-Côté points out that “
it is no longer in his language alone that the French will now present himself to the world (…) French, on this reference map, is no more than a language on two, almost optional, reserved for nationals, but considered insufficient outside the borders
. ”He underlines that the choice of English amounts“
to placing oneself under the symbolic hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon world
”and recalls that Emmanuel Macron is quick to such behavior, he who had chosen the language of Shakespeare to speak in Berlin in January 2017. We could also pin the choice ofan English slogan for Paris's candidacy for the 2024 Olympic Games ...
Once again, the European Union was at work, demanding bilingual identity papers.
The promotion of the use of English could seem paradoxical after Brexit, when it is no longer the mother tongue of only 1% of the population of the Union, and that the continent has offered languages to the world spoken all over the planet by hundreds of millions of people.
But in doing so, as General de Gaulle pointed out, the EU is once again showing that it is a project that serves Anglo-Saxon globalization more than European countries.
How sad to contribute in this way to the linguistic flattening of the world.
Behind this invasion of globish, there is the logic of global capitalism, which prefers to be able to use the same slogans and the same brand names for the whole world.
Laurent Pinsolle
And unfortunately, our public services, although theoretically framed by the Toubon law, do not deprive themselves of the use of globish.
The name of the new
Navigo easy
pass
, of the RATP and the SNCF, was precisely pinned by the association Francophonie Avenir, which brought the subject to the administrative tribunal. "Easy Navigo" would have worked perfectly, and would have spared us this new invasion of the globish. Unfortunately, the judges relied on a biased interpretation of the law to reject the association's request. Valérie Pécresse, president of the board of directors of Île-de-France Mobilité, could she not act to change the name of the pass and switch to a name in French? We can also add the questionable choice by the SNCF to rename its TGV “Ouigo”, a Franco-English mixture, with a sound that leans too much towards globish.
But it's not just public services that should exclusively use French for their brand names or communications. In France, it should be normal that all advertising campaigns only use the language of Molière. After all, if Mercedes manages to do it for most of its vehicles, why Peugeot is currently inflicting on us a “
It's time for a change
” in English for its 3008, and “
a new pioneering performance
” for its 508, after having already promised? to make the future less boring with its new 208 last year? Peugeot also stands out unfavorably with its
Peugeot Sport Engineered
label
and its
Store
...
Behind this invasion of globish, there is the logic of globalized capitalism, which prefers to be able to use the same slogans and the same brand names for the whole world: it costs less and allows a stronger central control. This is the reason why French companies, like Danone, persist in promoting Evian in France with the slogan "to
live young
", in English, or that of its yogurts by promising to "
stay strong
" in English. too ! The ultimate logic of deregulated globalization is a totally flattened and standardized public space, from which no more local distinction would subsist, all in a poor and superficial globish, in the name of commodity convenience.
We must go further to ban the use of English in all communications, both in the public and private sectors.
Laurent Pinsolle
As Mathieu Bock-Côté points out, France must be a pole of resistance to this standardization.
And since the
Navigo easy
case
shows that the Toubon law does not even ensure the use of French for a public service such as public transport, it is essential to review the law. As in Quebec, where we had to adapt to court decisions, we must go further to prohibit the use of English in all communications, in both the public and private sectors. All the same, it is not asking much to ensure that our country's official language is respected, especially since it will not harm anyone. And it would undoubtedly also be necessary to introduce stricter regulation of language choices for brands or retailers and not allow Île-de-France Mobilités to entitle a
Navigo easy
pass
in the future, and prefer thecall
Navigo easy
.
After all, would Nespresso have had less success asking "
What else?"
" in our country? Respect for our language is not an extravagant request. What is, is laissez-faire the invasion of globish and the erasure of French in the public space to satisfy the desire for standardization of the planet of a market capitalism refusing national particularisms.
