Louisiana is a French-speaking territory known throughout the world for its jazz, its Cajun and Creole culture and its swampy bayous. On the other hand, little is known about the current situation of the French language in this American state. How many French speakers are there still in Louisiana? And what public policies are being implemented to protect this threatened French fact?
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The exact number of French speakers in Louisiana is not known, but we still have some key indications. First, according to the US Census agency, in 2023, Louisiana had around 80,000 citizens who speak French at home, a significant decline compared to 2010 when there were 200,000 and 1 million in 1970.
Public policies essential to supporting the French language
Nevertheless, there is hope among the next generations. In French-speaking families, parents often did not learn French from their grandparents because of linguistic discrimination. Since the 1980s, the state has had a French immersion system which, this year, is enrolling 6,000 students in 40 schools.
The majority of Louisiana French speakers are now new speakers, which means that they do not necessarily speak this language at home, which motivates experts to estimate the overall number of Louisiana French speakers at around 300,000. After 40 years of success of the immersive system, elected officials of all political colors have understood the value of Louisiana French and have therefore increased the annual state budget for French-speaking projects to the highest level in history, $4 million from 2022.
In addition, the legislature also granted in the last three years the first grant dedicated to French-language programming on the state’s public broadcaster. And in 2022, the legislature also authorized and funded the first French-speaking school for a French-speaking Native American population: École Pointe-au-Chien southwest of the town of Houma.
The Louisiana presence at the Francophonie Summit, an opportunity
Internationally, Louisiana became an observer member of the OIF in 2018 and hosted a visit from the French president Emmanuel Macron in 2022. The head of delegation to the Summit of French-speaking who begins on October 4 in Villers-Cotterêts is Senator Jeremy Stine, second authority in the Louisiana Senate. Aged 44 and the son of four French-speaking grandparents, he is the first Louisiana parliamentarian to have benefited from a French-speaking education. There is undoubtedly still work to be done, but his presence at the Summit bears on the future of the language of Molière in the most French state in the United States.
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