French-Speaking Nations Open Summit : Mitterrand Says Language Must Have Role in New Technology

President Francois Mitterrand of France, warning that French identity is threatened in the modern world, Monday opened the long-delayed first summit of leaders of French-speaking countries in the Palace of Versailles, itself the product of an era when the French language dominated the civilized world.

Welcoming the leaders and representatives of 41 countries and communities to a three-day meeting, President Mitterrand echoed a theme that he has often emphasized: that something must be done to ensure a place for the French language in the modern economy and technology developing in the world.

Otherwise, he said, French speakers will not have a part in the creation and development of technology but will be “condemned to the role of subcontractors, translators and interpreters.”

The ceremonial opening of the conference was marred by French government difficulties involving two of the French-speaking countries. France announced that it was sending “a military dissuasion force” to Chad in response to the dropping of a bomb Monday onto the N’Djamena airport, apparently by a Libyan plane. The attack appeared to be in retaliation for a French air strike on a rebel airfield in northern Chad on Sunday.

On top of this, the French government was still having difficulty finding asylum outside France for Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti, once a French colony. Both matters are sure to be discussed at the conference.

Critic of French Nuclear Tests

French presidential spokesman Michel Vauzelle said the first long speech of the opening session was made by Prime Minister Walter Lini of the Pacific state of Vanuatu who spoke, not in French as expected, but in his native language, Bislama.

Vanuatu is a member of the South Pacific Forum, which has called for a halt to the French tests in the Pacific and speedy independence for the indigenous Melanesians of New Caledonia.

Vauzelle said a statement condemning apartheid in South Africa was adopted at the first working session of the summit. But it fell short of a call by some countries for far-reaching sanctions, he said.

The statement also called for independence for Namibia and a halt to what it said was South Africa’s policy of destabilizing its neighbors. That, too, did not go far enough to satisfy some delegates, Vauzelle said.

The idea of a French-speaking conference, first proposed in 1962 by Leopold Senghor, then President of Senegal, has languished for years because of a conflict in Canada between the province of Quebec and the federal government of Canada--especially when the separatist Rene Levesque was premier of Quebec and the strongly federalist Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister of Canada.

Impasse over Quebec Broken

But Quebec no longer has a separatist government, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney ended the impasse by allowing both Quebec and the province of New Brunswick, which also has a large French-speaking population, to send separate delegations to the conference.

There has been a good deal of speculation that the conference may create a French organization similar to the British Commonwealth. Mitterrand, in his opening speech, seemed to support that idea.

“We form an informal community,” he said. “In short, we have no institutional, administrative tie. But the nucleus that exists among us should be reinforced.”

In advance of the conference, the French government’s High Council of Francophonie issued a report trying to set the exact place of the French language in the world. It said there are 35 countries in which French is the official language, the administrative language, the maternal language, the language of instruction, or a language protected by special laws.

These countries, the council said, have a combined population of 300 million. But only a little more than 100 million of these people actually speak French as a mother tongue or as a second language.

Although the conference’s participants, including 14 heads of state and nine heads of government, represent most of the French-speaking countries of the world, there were some notable exceptions. Algeria refused to send a delegation. Switzerland, which insisted that it does not like to classify itself by language, refused to take part officially but sent an observer.

Mitterrand has made it clear that he is concerned about the use of the French language in modern technology. In a speech to the French Academy last December, Mitterrand said the French language had reached a crucial moment in its history.

“Either the French language learns to master computer technology,” he said, “or, in a few years, it ceases to be one of the great means of communication in the world.”