Uni chief told off for Anglicisms

AN ANNUAL “award” given to a member of France’s elite who has show “relentless determination to promote the domination of English in France to the detriment of French” has been won by the head of a leading university.

Sciences Po director Richard Descoings, who replies in English to letters in French from the French lycée in Madrid, has won the 2009 Carpette Anglaise (literally “English doormat award”).
The jury behind the award is made up of language experts.

Carpette spokesman Marc Favre d’Echallens said: “Mr Descoings seems to think English is the international language, so as Spain is not in France he must write in English to them.” He was also criticised for enforcing teaching in English in some courses at the top politics and social sciences school.

“To teach in English at a prestigious institution which attracts a lot of foreigners is a rejection of French language and culture,” Mr Favre d’Echallens said.

Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo got a “special foreign prize” for signing up to an EU renewable energy scheme which will only use English as its working language. Runner-up was the European Council, for making Briton Catherine Ashton who is “not capable of expressing herself adequately in any language other than English” its High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

Bodies short-listed included Auchan for Simply Market shops whose slogan is “Be happy! Be simply!, which offer shoppers “goodies” and a “Happy bonus pour être 100% happy!” Lyon chamber of commerce was in the running for trying to rename Aéroports de Lyon as Lyon Airports and the Quai Branly museum was chosen for exhibitions Upside Down - les Arctiques and Planète Métisse: to Mix or not to Mix and the SNCF for brands like iDNight and TGVFamily.

While the “prize” is tongue-in-cheek, the bodies behind it have a serious aim. They recently published an article in Le Monde, calling all citizens to “linguistic resistance” and quoting philosopher Michel Serres as saying: “There are more words in English on Paris walls than German ones under the occupation.” They wanted a national debate on the place of French so “the planned linguistic assassination cannot take place in silence,” adding “if a language of international influence like ours ended up being supplanted in its native land, what other European language could resist the Anglo-American steamroller?”

Mr Favre d’Echallens said: “English is a great language but the way firms think it’s fun to put English-style gobbledygook everywhere is inappropriate. They follow like sheep. It’s becoming the norm in commerce and industry from hairdressers to high-street brands and we want to say ‘stop.’ Different languages enrich the planet. If we all speak the same we might all think the same. We would get more situations like the economic crisis and the sub-prime affair. We need different outlooks on the world.”