FRENCH politicians have been left furious after the
European Commission signalled
English will remain the main language in Brussels after
Brexit, despite
Emmanuel Macron’s best attempt to make French
Europe’s mother tongue.
Funding for the English language will be maintained despite the
UK exiting the bloc next year, a new budget proposal has revealed.
The Commission stated: “Translation and interpretation services in the English language will remain unaffected.”
Vice President of the European Parliament, Sylvie Guillaume, said: “After Brexit, there’s a big temptation to make English the language of reference even more in the future.”
The French politician continued: “It worries me because I don’t really want us to end up speaking a language without subtlety on sensitive subjects.”
French President Emmanuel Macron recently said: “The situation now is quite paradoxical.
“English has probably never been as present in Brussels at the time when we are talking about Brexit.
“This domination is not inevitable.
“It’s up to us to set some rules, to be present, and make French the language with whom one has access to a number of opportunities.”
However, a number of EU institutions have increased the importance of English in recent years because it is spoken as a second language by most officials and diplomats.
English is already used by officials at the European Central Bank, showing the importance of the City of London in financial services.
The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, also conducts all his press conferences in English and is believed to speak little French.
This comes after French ambassador, Philippe Leglise-Costa, stormed out of an EU Council meeting last month because the work was conducted in English.
Mr Leglise-Costa went into a rage after being told no French interpretation was available.
French has long been dominant in Brussels and there are some 274million French speakers worldwide, making it the fifth most widely spoken language in the world.
But since eastern European members joined the EU in 2004, English has become far-reaching across EU institutions.
Mr Macron insisted his plot is not against the use of English, but more to promote multilingualism.
The EU poster boy set out a plan to spend hundreds of millions of Euros to promote the French language in African countries with the fastest growing populations last November while visiting Burkina Faso.
However, since the announcement he has faced a string of backlash, with accusations of the leader trying to suppress native cultures in favour of French.