Quebec is, of course, the most striking example. There, language is not merely a matter of literature or heritage: it is organised, regulated, monitored and protected in everyday life. The Charter of the French Language requires businesses to be able to provide information to and serve their customers in French. Since 1 June 2025, the rules governing commercial signage have been further tightened: when a foreign brand appears on a shop front, French must, in many cases, occupy a clearly predominant position on the entire sign. Businesses employing at least 25 people must also commit to an official process of francisation.
Quebec’s famous ‘PFK’ – short for ‘Poulet Frit Kentucky’ – has in itself become a symbol of this drive towards francisation, in contrast to the KFC known throughout the rest of the world. However, it should not be assumed that all foreign brand names are necessarily translated: this is not the case. A registered trademark may remain in another language under certain conditions. McDonald’s thus remains McDonald’s. But around the brand name, the law requires a very strong presence of French. That is the crux of the matter: Quebec does not ban English; it simply refuses to allow French to become secondary in its own public sphere.
And this is not merely theoretical. During a survey carried out in nearly 1,000 businesses in the Montreal area, the Office québécois de la langue française reported in May 2026 that service in French was available in 98 per cent of the establishments visited and that 92 per cent of the external signage examined complied with the rule on the predominance of French. There is therefore a policy, an authority responsible for enforcing it, and on-the-ground checks.
Belgium presents a different but equally interesting case. It would be incorrect to say that ‘Belgium’ as a whole defends the French language more than France does: the country has three linguistic communities – French-speaking, Flemish-speaking and German-speaking. However, it is precisely the country’s institutional organisation that accords considerable importance to language and culture. The Belgian communities are built around these two concepts. The French Community, now the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, has significant powers in the fields of education and culture. Its General Administration for Culture has the explicit remit of supporting artistic creation, production and dissemination, the arts, publishing, the audiovisual sector, the media and heritage.
The institutional weight is considerable: the Wallonia-Brussels Federation’s initial 2026 budget amounts to approximately 15.4 billion euros, of which more than 10.9 billion is allocated to education, research and training, whilst a block comprising, in particular, culture, health, social affairs and sport accounts for more than 2.3 billion. These figures do not allow us to conclude that ‘Belgium spends more on culture than France’ – the scope and populations are too different – but they do show the extent to which language, education and culture have their own dedicated institutions within the French-speaking Belgian system.
And what about France in all this? The paradox is that it, too, possesses a powerful legal arsenal. Article 2 of the Constitution states in black and white: ‘The language of the Republic is French’. The 1994 Toubon Act makes the use of French compulsory in many areas: education, the workplace, public services, consumer information, advertising and public signage. The Ministry of Culture itself points out that French citizens legally enjoy a genuine ‘right to French’.
The problem in France, therefore, is less the absence of laws than their visibility and the cultural relationship we have with our own language.
For one need only look around. Companies organise ‘workshops’, recruit ‘community managers’, seek ‘business developers’, hold ‘meetings’ following a ‘call’, set up their staff in ‘co-working’ spaces, and offer ‘food’, ‘lifestyle’, ‘coaching’, ‘concept stores’, ‘happy hours’ or ‘after-work events’. Every November, ‘Black Friday’ returns. Even public authorities sometimes use English to give their communication campaigns an air of modernity.
The most surprising thing is that the French Ministry of Culture itself acknowledges the existence of shortcomings, particularly in the communications of certain public bodies, and notes that the framework of the Toubon Act is now ill-suited to certain commercial or digital practices.
This does not mean that the French hate their language. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. A survey published by the Ministry of Culture in 2025 showed that 77 per cent of those questioned considered that French still held an important place in the world, whilst 50 per cent felt the language was under threat. Nine out of ten French people noted the presence of foreign expressions in public spaces, and 83 per cent felt that this presence was on the rise. Furthermore, 63 per cent wanted the Toubon Act to be strengthened.
The French have therefore probably not abandoned French in their hearts. Rather, they have abandoned it in their everyday habits.
Perhaps this is where the difference with Quebec lies. To a French person, French seems eternal. More than sixty million people speak it in the country, the state operates in French, schools teach in French, and no one seriously imagines Paris becoming an English-speaking city tomorrow. We can therefore afford to play around with English without feeling as though we are putting our language at risk.
A Quebecer does not have that luxury. They live on a continent with nearly 400 million English speakers. Defending the French language is therefore not, for them, an aesthetic debate about the beauty of words: it is a matter of cultural survival. The word ‘courriel’ rather than ‘e-mail’, ‘fin de semaine’ rather than ‘weekend’ or ‘magasinage’ rather than ‘shopping’ are not merely amusing peculiarities. They reflect the idea that a language which ceases to create the words of the present will gradually cease to shape the world.
French-speaking Belgium, for its part, has long been aware that a language is also a political and cultural balance of power. Coexistence with Dutch and German has forced the country to organise its linguistic territories legally and to entrust a significant part of education and culture to its communities.
France, for its part, perhaps suffers from the privilege of former cultural powers: it imagines that what it has always possessed cannot disappear.
No one is, of course, suggesting that all English words should be banished from the dictionary. French has always drawn on other languages and will continue to do so. It would become ridiculous if we were to try to translate every foreign word by decree. But there is a difference between a language that borrows and one that ceases to seek out its own words.
Quebec ultimately reminds us of a self-evident truth that the French may have forgotten: a language does not survive because it is beautiful, prestigious or ancient. It survives because people choose to use it every day.
And the paradox is rather delightful: sometimes you have to go to Montreal or Brussels to realise just how much of a privilege it is to speak French.
Perhaps it is time for France to remember this too.
