Geographical distribution of French speakers
Consequently, it was less as a centralising monarch than as a "gentle courtly prince" that the king unwittingly spread his language" and "the methods of expansion were not political"'.
[3] According to the 2022 report of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), 321 million people speak French.
[47] In urban areas, the ability to speak fluent French is considered almost mandatory to find employment, especially in specialized white collar fields.
[35] The French language, restricted to an urban elite during the colonial period, began to expand as part of the mass education efforts launched after 1962.
[53] The usage of French in the country reached its lowest point during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, when armed Islamist groups[who?]
The language has rebounded in public life since the end of the war,[54] culminating in the efforts to reintroduce French in primary schools in 2006, which were initially hampered by a lack of sufficiently qualified teachers.
According to a 2010 study by IMMAR Research & Consultancy, Francophone newspapers had a readership of 4,459,000 in the country, or 28% of the total, and a majority among readers with a high school or university education.
[56] The first French-medium school was established in Egypt in 1836, and the importance of French expanded throughout the second half of the 19th century, until it became the most common foreign language in the country.
[46] According to a survey conducted in 2012, just a third of urban Moroccans identify with a Francophone identity, and slightly more wish for French to become more commonly used.
In coastal areas and the more developed neighbourhoods of the capital, it is also a common language of communication for all social groups, either in its standardised form or hybridised with Arabic.
[62] Nearly three-quarters of the population of Tunis, Sousse and Sfax consider French as essential in their professional or personal lives.
[52] Local French-language media include La Presse de Tunisie, L'Economiste Maghrébin, Tunivisions, Le Temps.
According to the High Council of the International Organization of the Francophonie, in 2010, 96.2 million French speakers were living in various countries in Africa.
"[71] French can thus be considered the result of functional and vernacular ownerships, satisfying the needs of a society with new sociocultural and socioeconomic realities.
Examples include the Ivorian jargon "Nouchi" in Abidjan and the Cameroonian "Camfranglais", which is a mixture of French and English with elements of indigenous languages.
[35] Only Kirundi is spoken by the vast majority of the population, therefore holding the status of national language as determined by article 5 of the Constitution.
[35] About half of Kinshasa residents feel solidarity towards Francophone countries, and French is seen as important for education and relations with the government.
[82] In Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, French is seen as important for work, education and administrative matters, but not in everyday life, where Malagasy dominates.
[89] Only half of Dakar residents identify with a Francophone status or feel solidarity with French-speaking countries, but the French language is seen as essential for everyday affairs and education.
[92] Attempts to increase the legitimacy of Creole as an official language and in the media, on radio and television in particular, led to a relative decline in the share of French usage.
More than 600,000 francophones reside in Ontario (approximately 4.7 per cent of the population), constituting the largest French-speaking community in Canada outside Quebec.
Over 40 per cent of Franco-Ontarians reside in Eastern Ontario, with more than half of that population living in communities close to the Ontario-Quebec border.
[105] The learning of French has historically been important and strong among the Lusophone high societies, and for a great span of time, it was also the main foreign language among the middle class of both Portugal and Brazil, but now trails English, in both, and more recently, Spanish, in the latter.
Moreover, 50,000 people is estimated to occasionally practice French, while 2% of Hong Kong's total population of 7 million have studied the language.
Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French.
Home of the first Alliance Française in the Southeast Asia (founded in 1912), it continues to educate many Filipinos and expatriates in the said language.
[110] Official figures in 2019 estimate that about 675,000 Vietnamese are fluent in French, many of whom are older individuals educated during the colonial era.
Vietnam is the largest Francophone country in Asia and is a member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
[110] French formally became the official language of France in 1992,[119] but the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539.
[citation needed] The Aosta Valley was the first government authority to adopt Modern French as working language in 1536, three years before France itself.
