On this November 23, 2023, I take up my pen to pay tribute to the French teachers around the world who we have celebrated every year since 2019. We have all had a “French teacher” who left their mark on us. This person who will have passed on to us the love of words and books, and made the most difficult rules of spelling and grammar easy. Every year, in November, I think of Mr. Etienne Réunis, this extraordinary Belgian teacher whom I was lucky enough to have when I was a student at the Lycée Notre-Dame d’Afrique, located at the foot of the volcanoes in the Northern Rwanda. I owe him a lot, and probably, to a certain extent, my literary journey which led me to where I am today, at the head of La Francophonie.
Through you and thanks to you, all French teachers, may the discovery and learning of the language shared between 88 States and governments of the Francophonie in all its diversity and in all its varieties come about. We often talk about your vocation, your mission and your passion. They are the very basis of your profession, they are its essence. Being a French teacher is as much a life choice as it is a career choice. At each dawn, you put your knowledge alongside your kindness to transmit, share, advise, correct, advise and thus hope to contribute to a better world because it is more enlightened and less ignorant.
You undoubtedly draw joy from these eminently altruistic and inspiring acts for others, but I know full well that they are also difficult to assume in increasingly tense ecosystems, with increasingly numerous staff and configurations. increasingly complex on the five continents of the Francophonie.
“More than 321 million speakers worldwide”
You make the French language a magical tool for understanding and cohesion that transcends the proliferation of cultures. You break down geographical boundaries, you overcome grammar and styles, you shake up imaginations. You are the transmitters of words, of ideas but also of values inherent to this language which is necessarily decentered and enriched by its openness. The French language is thus that of literary productions, research and thoughts from the five continents of the Francophonie.
Spoken by more than 321 million speakers worldwide, the language of schooling for more than 93 million pupils and students, a foreign language taught at school to more than 51 million learners, the French that you wear proudly and which you faithfully transmit is in perpetual evolution. It cannot freeze because then it would be threatened with extinction, it can only enrich itself and be nourished by what is said and spoken here and there. This movement and dynamism of the language, which you assume with agility, gives it its consistency and adds richness to your profession which new generations must grasp.
The future of this language is in your hands, you are the essential actors of the Francophonie of the future. We must give you the means to carry out this mission. This is why I reiterate the support of the International Organization of La Francophonie. We will remain with you, wherever you intervene, to enable you to best practice this profession which is both an art and a science, this profession which gives life and soul to the French language in the linguistic diversity of the Francophonie.