Globish or Eurospeak – a form of English, often spoken with a clearly recognizable accent and adorned with neologisms that are not properly English: the language that is clearly dominant in the offices of the European Commission is the language that is officially the most spoken and learned in the 27 member states.
The fact that candidates for some of the currently open positions have to take tests in English is discrimination “based on language”, states the lawsuit, which became known on Monday according to the online magazine Politico.
debate
How does language change?
A similar process was successful
The chances of France asserting this position in court are not bad. In similar cases brought by Spain and Italy last year, the European Court of Justice upheld a ruling by the European Court of Justice that even the requirement of a good knowledge of one of the three working languages (in addition to an excellent knowledge of one of the 24 official languages) was objectively justified by an interest in the service should be.
In practice, of course, this is handled differently: authority employees have to go through a complex application process before they can get one of the coveted jobs in the numerous departments. Good knowledge of foreign languages is required, even though, according to EU law, it should not be a decisive factor in selection – except in justified cases, for example when vacancies in translation or interpreting departments are advertised.
Getty Images/iStockphoto/CatEyePerspective 27 EU countries, 24 official languages and three working languages: thanks to Eurospeak and well-oiled translation and interpretation machines, no one need fear Babylonian linguistic confusion.
France’s fight for its language
It’s not surprising that France, of all countries, is now rebelling against discrimination against its language in the EU, writes Politico. On the contrary, it reflects the internal political debate about France’s loss of influence in the world. This was also clear before the French Presidency of the Council. In the first half of 2022, the government announced that it would use this to relaunch multilingualism in EU institutions.
Even though France – at least superficially – was not concerned with promoting its own language, but rather with generally creating greater proximity between the EU and the people through multilingualism: initiatives such as French-only meetings and protocols failed in their purpose and did not they came to nothing.
English, which is so little appreciated by France as the main working language of the association of states, would also have advantages – as people are increasingly arguing in Brussels after Brexit. Given that after Britain’s exit only about one percent of EU citizens have English as their mother tongue, those in Malta and Ireland only a very small number of people have a – possibly unfair – advantage in life EU professional.
Portal/Christian Hartmann Emmanuel Macron took up the cause of defending the French language
Macron sees language as the boss’s business
However, the effort to revive French as a global language in Paris is a top priority: President Emmanuel Macron, who is considered a great lover of his language and likes to embellish it with old-fashioned expressions, is also politically committed to Francophonie.
A symbol of this is the Cité Internationale de la langue francaise, a French language museum in the renovated Villers-Cotterets castle, northeast of Paris, which opened on Monday. With a budget of 210 million euros, the museum is the second most expensive project of Macron’s term so far – after the renovation of the burned-out Notre-Dame Cathedral.
In his opening speech, Macron emphasized the diversity and modernity of the French language – but at the same time drew narrow limits: gender, for example, goes too far for him. “We must allow this language to live, be inspired and steal words from the other side of the world,” said the French president. But you don’t need to give in to the zeitgeist: “Masculine is neutral, you don’t need to put periods in the middle of words or hyphens or other things to make them readable.”