Languages of France


French is the sole official language in France according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France.
In addition to French, several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees, such as Alsatian, an Alemannic variety; spoken by 1.44% of the national population); Basque, a language isolate; Breton, a Celtic language ; Corsican, an Italo-Dalmatian language; and various other Gallo-Romance languages. Some of these languages are also spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Andorra, or Spain.

Status

The official language of the French Republic is French and the French government is, by law, compelled to communicate primarily in French. The government, furthermore, mandates that commercial advertising be available in French. The French government, however, does not mandate the use of French by private individuals or corporations or in any other media.
A revision of the French constitution creating official recognition of regional languages was implemented by the Parliament in Congress at Versailles in July 2008.
The 1999 written for the government by Bernard Cerquiglini identified 75 languages that would qualify for recognition under the government's proposed ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Of those languages, 24 are indigenous to the European territory of the state while all the others are from overseas areas of the French Republic.
Although ratification was blocked by the Constitutional Council as contradicting the Fifth Republic's constitutional provision enshrining French as the language of the Republic, the government continues to recognise regional and minority languages to a limited extent and the Délégation générale à la langue française has acquired the additional function of observing and studying the languages of France and has had et aux langues de France added to its title. The category of languages of France is thus administratively recognised even if this does not go so far as to provide any official status. Following his election as president, François Hollande reasserted in 2012 his campaign platform to ratify the European Charter and ensure a clear legal framework for regional languages.
The regional languages of France are sometimes called patois, but this term is often considered derogatory. Patois is used to refer to essentially oral languages, even though some have a current and/or historical use, such as Occitan, which was already being written at a time when French was not and its literature has continued to thrive, with a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral in 1904.
It is estimated that at the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only half of the population of France could speak French, and as late as 1871 only a quarter spoke French as their native language.

Language education

The topic of the teaching of regional languages in public primary and secondary schools is controversial. Proponents of the measure state that it would be necessary for the preservation of those languages and to show respect to the local culture. Opponents contend that local languages are often non-standardised, of dubious practical usefulness and that the curriculum and funding of public schools are already too strained. The topic also leads to wider controversial questions of autonomy of the régions. Regarding other languages, English, Spanish, Italian and German are the most commonly studied foreign languages in French schools.
In April 2001, the Minister of Education, Jack Lang, stated formally that "Depuis plus de deux siècles, les pouvoirs politiques ont combattu les langues régionales", ie for more than two centuries, the political powers of the French government had repressed regional languages, and announced that bilingual education would, for the first time, be recognised, and bilingual teachers recruited in French public schools.

Cross-border languages

Some of the languages of France are also cross-border languages, some of which enjoy a recognised or official status in the respective neighbouring state or territory. French itself is also a cross-border language, being spoken in neighbouring Andorra, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Switzerland.

List of languages

According to the 2007 Adult Education survey, part of a project by the European Union and carried in France by the Insee and based on a sample of 15,350 people, French was the mother tongue of 87.2% of the total population, or roughly 55.81 million people, followed by Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. People who spoke other languages natively made up the remaining 5.2% of the population.

National language

Regional languages

The regional languages of Metropolitan France include:

Celtic

Germanic

Italo-Dalmatian

Gallo-Romance

Others

Overseas languages

There are also several languages spoken in France's overseas areas :

Sign language

French Sign Language is also recognised as a language of France.

Immigrant languages

A large number of immigrant languages are spoken in France, with a handful having a significant number of home speakers.

Main immigrant languages

Statistics

INSEE 1999

At the 1999 census, INSEE sampled 380,000 adult people all across Metropolitan France, and asked them questions about their family situation. One of the questions was about the languages that their parents spoke with them before the age of five. This is the first time serious statistics were computed about the proportion of mother tongues in France. The results were published in Enquête familiale, Insee, 1999.
Here is a list of the nine most prominent mother tongues in France based on Enquête familiale.
RankLanguageMother tonguePercentage of adult population
1French39,360,00086%
2German dialects 970,000 2.12%
3Maghrebi Arabic940,0002.05%
4Occitan 610,000 1.33%
5Portuguese580,0001.27%
6Oïl languages 570,000 1.25%
7Italian, Corsican and Ligurian 540,0001.19%
8Spanish485,0001.06%
9Breton280,000 0.61%
10About 400 other languages: Polish, Berber languages, East Asian languages, Catalan, Franco-Provençal, Basque, West Flemish, etc., as well as those who gave no response2,350,000 5.12%
Total45,762,000 102%

When the people with mother tongue and people with some exposure to the language before the age of five are added together, the five most widely spoken languages in metropolitan France are :
  • French: 42,100,000
  • Occitan: 1,670,000
  • German and German dialects: 1,440,000
  • Oïl languages : 1,420,000
  • Arabic: 1,170,000

''Ethnologue'', Metropolitan France

The following languages are listed as having 50,000 or more total speakers in Metropolitan France according to the 2022 edition of Ethnologue. Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages are not included in this section.
LanguageFamilyBranchFirst-language
speakers in France		Second-language
speakers in France		Total
speakers in France
AlsatianIndo-EuropeanGermanic900,000
Algerian ArabicAfro-AsiaticSemitic1,350,000
Moroccan ArabicAfro-AsiaticSemitic1,140,000
Tunisian ArabicAfro-AsiaticSemitic447,000
Western ArmenianIndo-EuropeanArmenian70,000
ArpitanIndo-EuropeanRomance150,000
BasqueIsolate72,000
BretonIndo-EuropeanCeltic206,000
CatalanIndo-EuropeanRomance126,000
CorsicanIndo-EuropeanRomance150,000
EnglishIndo-EuropeanGermanic236,00026,200,00026,436,000
FrenchIndo-EuropeanRomance62,400,0001,500,00063,900,000
French Sign LanguageFrancosign100,000
Standard GermanIndo-EuropeanGermanic4,000,0004,000,000
ItalianIndo-EuropeanRomance829,000
KabyleAfro-AsiaticBerber537,000
KhmerAustroasiaticMon–Khmer50,000
Lesser Antillean French CreoleIndo-EuropeanRomance150,000
Lorraine FranconianIndo-EuropeanGermanic400,000
OccitanIndo-EuropeanRomance110,000
PicardIndo-EuropeanRomance500,000
PortugueseIndo-EuropeanRomance959,000
SpanishIndo-EuropeanRomance461,0005,990,0006,451,000
Central Atlas TamazightAfro-AsiaticBerber150,000
TamilDravidianSouthern125,000
TurkishTurkicOghuz444,000