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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

‘Plan for degree courses in English is deluded’

The French government is planning a controversial change in the law to allow more university courses to be taught entirely in English, in a bid to attract foreign students. Author Frederic Werst, one of a group of writers against the project tells The Local why the idea is "deluded".

Published: 17 April 2013 16:30 CEST
Updated: 22 May 2013 08:55 CEST
'Plan for degree courses in English is deluded'

France’s Minister for Higher Education, Geneviève Fioraso, provoked anger among a group of writers, as well as the famous protectors of the French language the Academie Française earlier this year when she announced plans to permit university courses to be taught entirely in English.

Fioraso wants to change the famous Toubon law – which states that French must be the language of all teaching – a move that would enable universities to attract more students from across the globe.

The government wants to bring the level of foreign students from 12 percent to 15 percent at French institutions, whose reputation, according to a recent report, has suffered on a global scale. They believe courses in English hold the key.

Many academics, including Jean-Loup Salzmann, president of the Conference of University Presidents are in favour. "English has become the international Language no matter what the pessimists think," he said.

Although some private universities and the elite Grandes Ecoles already offer courses in English, officially they are breaking the law by doing so. Author Frederic Werst who, along with other writers, is leading the campaign against the minister's plan, tells The Local why the practice should remain illegal.

French universities would only be second choice

Frédéric Werst: "The government says it wants to increase the attractiveness of French Universities. For this reason, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Geneviève Fioraso, has developed a bill including certain provisions to achieve this aim. At first sight, one can only rejoice.

"However, the problem is that this bill envisages the creation of university courses that would provide instruction in a "foreign language", which of course, would be English. This would then see French removed from some courses.  As an advocate of linguistic diversity, it seems to me a bad idea. Just as the Académie Française noted, the current bill is far too vague.

"The Minister argues that this move would help attract the best foreign students to France. But this is deluded. The universities of choice for the best English-speaking students will naturally be in Anglo institutions. For them, French universities would only be a fallback option.

There are other languages than English to learn

"Fundamentally, it is clear that excellence is not just about speaking mediocre Globish (global English) but about mastering several languages. This is true today, and it will be even more true in the world of tomorrow.

"Multilingualism is an enrichment of the spirit and an invaluable asset for innovation and success in all areas, including in science and commerce.

"It is true that the level of foreign language ability ​​is not good in France. But it's not by removing French from universities that we will solve this problem.

"We need to promote foreign languages: English of course, but also Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and many others. Obviously French universities should offer more bilingual and multilingual courses. But this is not the spirit of the law proposed by Fioraso.

"The minister is blinded by a utilitarian ideology which believes that knowledge is a commodity and a language is simply packaging. But this is false: language itself is knowledge and the ability to speak several languages is extremely enriching.  

If you want to be competitive and attractive, then this is what we need too promote – not monolingualism, which only leads to poor results.

We are ignoring growing French speaking world

"The minister’s bill also ignores the opportunity that the French-speaking world represents for France and its universities. French is still the world’s second language, even if it is a long way behind English. And the population of the French-speaking world is growing rapidly.

"Thousands of students in French-speaking countries but also in other regions (the Gulf region, Asia) would like to study in France.

They too speak English, but also other languages. These are the ones we need to attract and we should introduce a visa for the whole French speaking world ('visa Francophonie') as soon as possible.

The  Minister for La Francophonie, Yamina Benguigui, has publicly stated her commitment to this idea. We can only encourage her to implement it."

Frederic Werst is a French author best known for his 2011 book "Ward, an anthology of poems and tales on the fictional Wards people", that was written half in French and half in the made up language of Wardwesân. Along with novelists Eugène Green and Olivier Rolin, Werst is leading the campaign against the government's plan, which is set to go before parliament in May. 

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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