Dear Mr. Amin Maalouf, when, succeeding Madame Carrère d’Encausse, you were elected permanent secretary of the French Academy, all those in France and beyond who value culture felt like a new wind blowing. of the Levant. An eminent representative of French-speaking diversity, you embody both polyglot erudition, a love of literature and a humanism without borders.
On November 14, it fell to you, of course, to take a decisive part in what was considered by many as a “historic event”: the ceremony of handing over to the President of the Republic the fourth and final volume of the dictionary of the Academy. Your speech recalled the prestigious past of this Company, its uninterrupted history for four centuries, in the service of the French language and French-speaking literature.
On your part, you who signed in particular the preface of a work entitled For a bilingual educationhowever, we would have expected words that were a little different from those that you made resonate under the dome.
A desire to annihilate the languages of France
Your historical evocation has largely highlighted a role that must be described as ideological and political, a role that the Parisian power has, for a long time, made the French language play, a role which, when you think about it, seems out of step with what you embody and which we have just mentioned. You thus insist on the function of the French language as the cement of “our society”, which “ensures the permanence of the Nation”. And you rightly remember that this function was first decided by a monarchy whose ambitions, it must be emphasized, were those of centralism and absolutism. This centralism, pursued by the Republic, manifested itself in a desire to annihilate the languages of France other than French. Should we keep silent about this reality, which undoubtedly does not conform to your ideals? Isn’t it time to remember that Marianne, the allegory of the French Republic, was invented by a Languedoc revolutionary in 1792 in a song written in Occitan and that she was named Marianno?
In your speech, you also speak of French as a “common language” whose function in national cohesion is and has been crucial. But it would still be good to remember that the French power very quickly assimilated the notion of a common language with that of a single language. A language that had to be imposed at all costs, supposedly for the good of all. That this was done not without violence, in defiance of French linguistic and cultural plurality, is a well-established fact.
Children punished in schools in the Republic
Hundreds of thousands of children in the Republic’s schools were punished because they spoke the language of their family and their region. Thus, the use of the “symbol”, a degrading object with which schoolchildren guilty of this linguistic crime were adorned, as the historian Rozenn Milin recalls, was a method of humiliation used with the objective of eradicating so-called regional languages. of the French population. There have been others, mentioned for example by the sociolinguist Philippe Blanchet. “Are you surprised then that regional languages were associated with feelings of shame and guilt and that schoolchildren, when they became adults, did not want to pass them on to their children!” underlines linguist Henriette Walter. And, whether through ignorance or deliberately, we continue to express and practice contempt towards these languages, including at the top of the State.
It will be said that the ceremony of November 14 was neither the place nor the time to return to these regrettable realities. Unfortunately, it seems that the French authorities never find a favorable place or time when these subjects are discussed. And we could have hoped from you for even an allusion to the fate of our languages, precious companions of French, which are in danger and to which the State authorities inflict treatment contrary to internationally recognized rights.
A language does not carry values
Speaking of the French language as a common language, therefore, you added this expression that we often hear: “and the values it carries.” However, a language does not carry values, this is an obvious fact that we would be wrong to forget. French has thus been at the same time or in turn the language of the monarchy and that of the Republic; that of slaveholders and abolitionists; that of the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards; that of the colonialists and anti-colonialists; that of collaboration and Resistance… Who could then define the “values” which our national language is supposed to carry and which – if we pursue a logic implicitly shared by many – could well be lacking in other languages?
You finally stated, in an allusion to the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts: “Language ensures equality before the law, as François I understood in 1539.” Let’s examine the reality of that time. Historians estimate that in the 16th century, at the time the said ordinance was signed (which was made to say what it did not say, but that’s another subject…), 80% to 90% of the population did not speak not French, but one of the so-called regional languages. Under these conditions, it is difficult to see how imposing a rare language on an entire population could be considered a mark of “equality”, a fortiori in a country where “Depending on whether you are powerful or miserable, /The court judgments will make you white or black…”
A fight for diversity, not against the French language
Mr Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, did not hesitate to repeat a widely circulated cliché, making linguistic diversity “an instrument, basically, of dividing the nation”. However, a few moments later, his speech referred to the use of French, for example in Quebec or Acadia, as an act of “resistance to the standardization which threatens us”, and not as an instrument of division of the Canadian nation. Truth on this side of the Atlantic, error beyond? Still, we easily see, in such a contradiction, that the cultural and linguistic “fight” claimed with pride when it is carried out in the name of the French language where it resists in a way that we wants to believe heroic, is on the contrary considered retrograde and dangerous when it is carried out to defend our languages from internal diversity. And no, let us emphasize, against the French language. Because the sense of fraternity, sharing and conviviality shows us the way towards a country where multilingualism would be the mark of respect for everyone and where the community of French – not its destructive exclusivity – would be sufficient to guarantee harmonious unity. and accepted by all. Utopia? Consider the multilingualism of billions of humans, and we will judge.
And you in particular, Mr. Amin Maalouf, can have a particularly lucid view on this subject, you who come from a country where we see that the forces which divide the nation have very little to do with the languages that the we talk there.
And then the so-called regional languages of France are not foreign to you. You are the author of the libretto of an opera acclaimed on the opera stages of the world, an opera, Love from afarinspired by the Occitan troubadour Jaufré Rudel, where you slipped passages into the Occitan language which was that of the poet. You know that this linguistic heritage, recognized as such by our constitution, is not a folkloric relic that can be allowed to die a natural death without having to regret it. You know that the resistance of these languages is just as legitimate as that of French where it finds itself in danger.
When Emmanuel Macron uses the derogatory word “patois”
In your remarkable work, Murderous Identitiesyou write in particular: “When we feel our language despised, our religion flouted, our culture devalued, we react by ostentatiously displaying the signs of our difference. When we feel, on the contrary, respected, when we feel our language respected, then we react differently.” Is it unfair to consider that, for centuries, France has cultivated real contempt for French languages other than French and has no respect for their speakers? The head of state, using the derogatory word patois – whose origin must always be underlined: it comes from old French patoirier meaning ‘to move one’s paws’, that is to say ‘to gesticulate’ (in other words: ‘language of clumsy people’) – has he not illustrated this practice before you once again?
We therefore appeal to your wisdom and your open-mindedness: you, and the institution that you represent, can play a decisive role in the preservation and renewal of our languages – which have also generously nourished French, your dictionary bears witness to this. Expressing yourself publicly in this sense, reminding or explaining to the French – they very often ignore them – the historical and present realities of our linguistic situation, would be an act of truth and a commitment to a more harmonious and respectful future.
Please accept, Mr. Amin Maalouf, the expression of our respectful feelings.
*Collective for literature in regional languages at school
Hélène Biu – Lecturer in medieval linguistics and Romance philology at Sorbonne University
Philippe Blanchet Lunati – Professor of sociolinguistics at Rennes 2 University
Philippe Martel – Historian, emeritus university professor, Montpellier
Christiane Metzger – President of Filal at the origin of the first immersion daycare in the Alsatian language
Pascal Ottavi – Sociolinguist, former university professor, Corsica
Céline Piot – Lecturer in history and history teaching at the University of Bordeaux (INSPÉ); community activist
Philippe Pratx – Writer; collective coordinator
Marie-Jeanne Verny – University Professor Emeritus in Occitan; community activist
.