English Is in the Air for Carrier, but French Defenders Cry ‘Non’

There’s something new in the skies over France. Air France pilots have been instructed that when they have something to say by radio to the tower at Charles de Gaulle airport, they should speak in English.

For the airline, the policy imposed last month is a matter of safety. Commercial air traffic is increasing throughout Western Europe, including at Paris’ main international airport, and “one airspace means one language,” said Bertrand de Courville, who is in charge of flight safety at Air France.

For defenders of French, the national carrier’s switch is yet another surrender in the face of English-language imperialism, a scourge ever more real because of the spread of new technologies and the Internet.

“These people are jerks,” Jacques Myard, a conservative member of Parliament, said of Air France. Safety, he charged, is a phony argument.

“There’s a certain French elite that tirelessly apes the Anglo-Saxon world,” he said, adding: French is “the language of civilization.”

Perhaps, but many people here are worried that the barbarians are not only at the gate but are streaming in. The Academie Francaise, whose mission is to keep French strong and pure, warned in a recent report that English is “invading minds, writings, the world of the audiovisual.” In February, members of the National Assembly held a conference to discuss what can be done to safeguard the language of Moliere, Pasteur and Sartre.

For the French, defending their language and its global reach is a matter of national pride. Long the idiom of polite European society and international diplomacy, French remains one of the official languages of the United Nations and, in addition to English, continues to be the other official language of the Olympics. The Summer Games will be held in Sydney, Australia, beginning Sept. 15.

In this country, a 1994 law establishes French as the medium for “teaching, work, exchanges and public service.”

But on some fronts, French is unquestionably in retreat. Claude Allegre, who until Monday was education minister, had asked that scientific papers by French researchers be written in English. His rationale was that writing in English ensured far greater global exposure. For linguistic zealots, it was another humiliation.

At Air France, two pilots unions also have taken up the cause of French, encouraging disobedience of the English-only policy decreed by management.

“French is recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization,” argued Guy Ferrer, a member of one of the unions. “They’ve never proved that an accident was due to the use of two different languages.”

However, English’s dominance over French is such that, in some areas, only rear-guard action seems feasible. Some optimists see the Internet as a means of facilitating contact among the 130 million speakers of French spread across five continents. But the Internet is first and foremost an English-language medium. According to one survey, only 2.81% of the content is in French, while more than 75% is in English.

This dominance is even greater in chat rooms: An estimated 80% of global message traffic is in English; only 1.15% is in French.

To try to erect a dike against the invasion of English-language terms, a commission of the Finance Ministry last month proposed some home-grown substitutes. Instead of “start-up,” it recommends “jeunes pousses,” literally the green shoots sent out by plants. In lieu of the “e-mail,” the French henceforth will be encouraged to say “message electronique.”

Recommendations of the panel are binding for government agencies and state-run enterprises, but nothing compels ordinary citizens to use them. Jean Saint-Geours, the commission president, said his concern is that the French might not understand words borrowed from English but will speak and write them anyway. His example: “stock option.” The commission has proposed a French substitute, “option sur titres.”

“The French are lazy. For the sake of convenience, they will adopt English words when there already are French words,” Saint-Geours said. “There are too many cloned words that people use in thinking they know what they mean.”