COPY LINK

FRENCH LANGUAGE

Museum of the French language to open in northern France

The first cultural venue entirely dedicated to the French language will open on November 1st - here's what you can expect.

Published: 23 October 2023 17:14 CEST

Museum of the French language to open in northern France

The "lexical sky" of the courtyard of the Jeu de paume at Cite Internationale de la Langue Française (Photo by FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP)

France will soon open the doors to the brand new ‘Cité Internationale de la Langue Française’ located at the Château de Villers-Cotterêts in northern France – between Paris and Reims.

The Château is of symbolic importance to the French language, as it is where the French king François I signed an important edict establishing French – not Latin – as the administrative language for the kingdom in 1539.

Originally intended to open in mid-October, with French President Emmanuel Macron in attendance, the inauguration of the museum was delayed following the Islamist-inspired killing of a French school teacher in northern France.

The new opening is now scheduled for Wednesday, November 1st, following a €185 million revamp of the historic building.

What’s in the museum?

In the first permanent exhibit, visitors will be able to experience ‘L’aventure du français’ (The adventure of French), which will explore the ups and downs of the language, its history and evolution, how and where it is used today, as well as expressions and iconic songs that have shaped it.

An employee stands near an exhibit at the Cite Internationale de la Langue Française (International French Language Centre) in mid-October, prior to opening. (Photo by FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP)

The museum will offer 15 rooms, with over 150 items on display, including works of art, historic documents, as well as over 50 visual and sound exhibits, RTL’s culture journalist, Bernard Lehut, wrote.

The museum has also transformed the former courtyard of the Jeu de Paume into ‘a lexical sky’, with 90 words with giant letters suspended from a glass roof.

Future exhibits planned for 2024 include one on French-language songs that have become world-wide hits.

The symbolic nature of the Château

The Château was a favourite of King François I, who enjoyed hunting in the nearby Retz forest and over the years has witnessed many milestones of the French language – the poet François Rabelais stayed there, Molière presented his play ‘Tartuffe’, and the novelist Alexandre Dumas was born in the town of Villers-Cotterêts.

The castle went on to become a barracks for the Republican army during the Revolution in 1789, and from 1808 a workhouse where beggars were confined before becoming a retirement home in 1889. It remained an EHPAD until 2014.

The French government already has big plans for the site – it is due to host the Francophonie Summit, which will be held in France in autumn 2024, according to Le Figaro, citing the Elysée Palace.

France is notoriously protective of its language with laws specifying limits on the amount of non-French songs that can be played on the radio and banning English words or phrases in adverts, unless accompanied by a translation.

Practical details

Guests will have the option of self-guided tours, with “all tour content available in French, English and German”.

A free mobile app will also allow foreign visitors to have content translated into either Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, or Dutch. You can download the app here.

The hours of operation will be Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6:30pm. The standard rate for tickets for adults will be €9. Entrance will be free for EU citizens under 26 years of age, with discounts for pensioners, job-seekers and children.

The Chateau is accessible by car (off the A2) or by train, a roughly 10 minute walk from the Villers-Cotterêts station. The TER train takes around 45 minutes from Paris Gare du Nord.

Find more details on the museum’s website here.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam has long been trying to clean up a reputation for rowdy stag parties, drugs and sex that has been partly blamed on an influx of around 20 million visitors a year.

In 2023 it launched an online campaign aimed at discouraging young British men from travelling to Amsterdam to get high or very drunk, telling them in typically blunt Dutch fashion to “stay away” or risk arrest.

Amsterdam also announced last week a ban on new hotels and that it would halve the number of river cruise ships in the city within five years.

It also decided last year to ban smoking cannabis on the streets of the red-light district.

Hallstatt and Salzburg in Austria

The tiny village of Hallstatt, a hamlet just 750 people strong not far from Salzburg and bearing a striking resemblance to the fictional kingdom of Arendelle from Disney’s Frozen – last year caused furore when its residents erected a fence at its famous vista to deter selfie-seekers. After a social media backlash, the village – which is also a UNESCO heritage site – removed the fence, but signs remind visitors to enjoy the site quietly.

Residents were also protesting in favour of tourism curbs in the village, which gets as many as 10,000 visitors a day in high season. They want to limit the numbers and ban tour buses in the town after 5:00 p.m.

Not far from Hallstatt, the city made famous by classical music, Hollywood classics and Christmas songs, Salzburg, has also complained about massive tourism and the danger of being “overrun by mass tourists and day trippers”.

The city’s tourism boss Christine Schönhuber said: “We only want those who stay overnight”. The western Austrian city is yet to take any concrete measures, but it has floated ideas such as closing some streets to cars and putting restrictions on souvenir shops. The city is also considering closing the bus terminal at the city’s Mirabellplatz to day tripping companies – allowing only those transporting overnight guests.

Iseltwald, Switzerland

The quaint Swiss village of Iseltwald has been forced to limit the number of tourists after fans of a South Korean Netflix hit show flocked to the region in droves sparking a backlash from locals.

Iseltwald is often referred to as the pearl of Lake Brienz, and rightfully so. The fishing village is located on the left bank of the river and is one of the smallest communities in the canton of Bern – and locals would like to keep it that way.

A picture taken on June 2, 2023 shows the village of Iseltwald at the shore of Lake Brienz, in the Swiss Alps. Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Dubrovnik

Croatia’s medieval walled city of Dubrovnik is one of Europe’s most overcrowded cities, with the flow of tourists sometimes making it impossible to walk inside the historic Old Town.

The jewel of the Adriatic has seen a huge surge in visitor numbers since scenes from the series “Game of Thrones” were filmed on its ramparts in 2011.

In 2023, the town of 41,000 people received 1.2 million tourists, below 2019’s record of 1.4 million.

In 2019 local authorities limited the number of cruise ship arrivals to two per day, with no more than 4,000 passengers each at a time.

They also launched an app that uses machine learning and weather forecasts to predict when the Old Town, a UNESCO world heritage site, will be busiest.