France is fighting for the role of the French language in the European Union (EU) and against applications for EU positions in English only
A corresponding complaint before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is set to enter the decisive phase this Thursday with the oral hearing in Luxembourg.
France is criticising “unjustified unequal treatment on the basis of language” because some tests in certain areas are only conducted in English.
The European Union’s duty to preserve the richness of its cultural and linguistic diversity and to ensure the protection and development of Europe’s cultural heritage has been violated.
The complaint says, If such language practices were to be systematised for all application procedures, according to French diplomatic circles, English would be favoured as the only language in the long term.
This would run counter to the multilingualism to which they feel committed.
France’s problem is that we have gone from a situation in which French was the international language to one in which it no longer is. Political scientist, Christian Lequesne told dpa.
That a lot of French was spoken when the European institutions were being set up, and almost all diplomats used to speak the language. In the meantime, this has declined massively.