Vietnam :
A French-speaking elite
While Vietnam’s elite speaks French, its civil servants and business community adopted English in 1994, the year of the country’s incorporation in ASEAN1. Once the main language, French has now become a second foreign language. Although French is still widely taught, it is being caught up by Mandarin, Japanese and even German, and its popularity is waning. 400,000 Vietnamese currently speak French but they represent an essentially ageing population. The younger generation of Vietnamese, for its part, is turning to English-language cultures.
Some 100,000 pupils at all levels, i.e. 4.5% of the total, are learning French. At the beginning of the eighties, they were 10 times more. While the importance of French is diminishing in secondary schools, its status is more stable at the level of higher education. In 1992, the Aupelf-Uref2 and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education set up more than 500 bilingual classes, enabling 14,500 young children to learn French. The aim is to arrive, by 2006, at a proportion of 10% of students graduating from secondary school with French as their main language. Doctors, chemists, engineers, senior civil servants, lawyers and journalists all communicate in French. A number of newspapers such as Saigon Eco, Courrier du Vietnam... are published in French and every day Vietnamese TV broadcasts a news bulletin in French. It would seem, then, that while a French-speaking elite is establishing itself, the attitude of the Vietnamese towards French is still conditioned by the French-speaking companies locating in the region.
At the Hanoi Summit, six major French-language projects for cultural cooperation were launched in the Vietnamese capital, including the National Museum of Ethnography, a French and French-language bookshop and a 900 seat cinema dedicated to the screening of French and French-language films in the original version.
Eric de Lavarène
Journalist with Asie Magazine
1. The Association of South-East Asian Nations was founded in 1967 to promote regional economic cooperation. There are nine member countries: Burma, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
2. Association of universities based partially or entirely on the French language.
Laos :
A successful cohabitation?
Between 1975 and 1989, Laos withdrew into seclusion. During those years, French was able to maintain its influence, despite the clear losses in popularity in Cambodia and Vietnam. The resumption of French, Swiss and Canadian cooperation in early 1990 provided a strong boost to the teaching of French at Vientiane (where the French Cultural Centre is located) as well as in the more accessible provinces.
Today, some 240,000 people are learning French (35% of students and pupils) and the setting-up of bilingual classes at the primary level is currently under review. Most of the senior civil servants are French-speaking and the Laotian population remains favourably disposed towards French. While the north of the country is entirely under the influence of Chinese, the centre and south are divided between French and English. French is the language of choice for medicine, law and administration while English predominates in trade and finance
E. de L.
French in Japan :
The cultural appeal
In August 1996, Japan played host for the very first time to the World Congress of French Teachers and, although Japan is not a French-speaking country, it is particularly fond of all things French. This attraction to the French culture and language is reflected in the record annual figure of 400 French or French-language cultural events. While the general public in Japan is interested more in the French way of life, it is France’s civilisation and culture that appeals to intellectuals disenchanted by the materialism of the « economic miracle ».
As the language of literature and the land of the Rights of Man, French and France also represent a career springboard to Europe and to such industries as fashion, the arts and the hotel and catering trade for the young generations of Japanese. This is reflected in their growing interest in the international departments of French schools of commerce and the fact that some 5,000 Japanese travel to France each year to enrol in language courses.
In Japan itself, which has four Alliances and French Cultural Centres, 279,000 people study French, 90% of them students. 600 of the 1,000 university education establishments, including 13 private universities, provide French language tuition, and the Japanese Society for the French Language and Literature has some 2,000 teachers on its roster. French is therefore a language that is still widely studied, despite the competition from English and the Asian languages. To help boost the spread of French, young teachers are now relying on a restructuring of the French syllabus, with more references to the rest of the French-speaking world, and on the impetus provided by the Tokyo Congress and its slogan « Tracing the future, cultivating the difference ».
Emmanuelle Pavillon
Indonesia :
A French-language community in its infancy
With 45,000 people learning French at all levels, i.e. only 0.11% of the total population attending school, Indonesia has one of Asia’s lowest rates for learning French. This situation is likely to deteriorate even further due to the reform of secondary education which, since 1996, has made learning foreign languages optional in secondary schools. At university level, Indonesia has four French departments and fourteen state or private universities offering French as an option. French is also taught in state schools specialising in tourism and in hotel and catering. As for the Alliances françaises, there are eleven of them and they attract some 1,500 students a year. However, they are up against fierce competition from the four French Cultural Centres (Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surabaya), which have acquired a high profile following their educational and teacher training activities. In 1996, 6,500 students attended courses organised by the CCF.
Tirthankar Chanda
Journalist
Cambodia :
French rapidly losing ground
Of the 13,000 students enrolled at Phnom Penh universities in 1997, more than half, i.e. 7,000, are learning French. Financed by the Cultural Centre or the Aupelf-Uref, the courses are provided by 25 French-speaking lecturers, whose work also involves handing over the relay to Khmer professors. The secondary level has 200,000 pupils learning French. Up until 1975, French was the first foreign language taught in the kingdom; by the end of the eighties, it had totally disappeared. With the opening, in 1990, of the Alliance française* and the implementation of cooperation ventures with various establishments, the teaching of French was given a new lease on life, even if it is still outpaced by English and Chinese. Each year, several dozen students are sent to France to pursue their studies.
France is also present in the tourist sector, where courses have been set up at Phnom Penh University and at the Royal Administration School, which holds seminars in French. For its part, the Cultural Centre attracts some 6,000 Cambodian students and trainee teachers and is also present at Siemreap, Kompong Cham and Sihanoukville. The French-language media are relatively well established in Phnom Penh, with programmes broadcast on the national TV channel, a daily newspaper Cambodge soir and a monthly magazine Cambodge nouveau. RFI and TV5 are also picked up in Cambodia. Most of the country’s elite, in particular lawyers, artists, academics and doctors, speak French.
E. de L.
* The Alliance française became the French Cultural Centre in 1994.
South Korea :
Unexpectedly pro-French
Korea is Asia’s leading French-speaking country after Vietnam, based on the number of people learning and teaching French. It has six Alliances françaises and one French cultural centre. 320,000 pupils and 22,000 students are currently learning French in Korean schools and universities, making it the second language studied at university level, ahead of German and Japanese and second only to English. However, the overall trend is downward and French departments at universities have lost almost a quarter of their student numbers since the eighties. Moreover, they continue to attract a student population essentially with a literary bias and predominantly female. It confirms once again the image of France as the « country of the arts and the aesthetic », all too often to the detriment of its technical and scientific achievements.
Stéphane Lagarde
Seoul-based journalist
The French-language community in Thailand :
an anti-model?
For a long time French monopolised the « market » for the second foreign languages on offer to young Thais (English being the first language and compulsory); today, French is having to compete with Chinese, Japanese and German. Hence the change in balance: with around 45,000 individuals learning French for a population of 12 millions pupils and students, French is now less present in Thailand than it was in the seventies. Nonetheless, it remains the leading second language taught and benefits from a firm stronghold within Thailand’s education system: some 300 secondary schools and fifteen private and state-run universities ensure the teaching of French.
In fact, a large number of the country’s key figures, decision-makers and researchers are French-speakers, particularly in such fields as law, public administration, the humanities as well as in some unexpected sectors of activity such as the National Space Agency or the General Directorate for the Post Office and Communications.
This enthusiasm for the French language and culture is due notably to the pro-French attitude of the country’s elite, influenced by that of the royal family, and also by the strong cultural image of the French lifestyle, an image of France that is popular among young people. For others, the success of French is due paradoxically to its image as a minority language within a regional complex marked by the predominance of English and the rise in strength of Chinese and Japanese. French and the system of values it evokes seems to constitute a sort of anti-model. For example in the current debates on constitutional reform, French law is clearly perceived as an alternative model to Anglo-Saxon law. A favourable trend to which the growing presence of French companies also contributes, not to mention the after-effects of events that have proved very popular in the country, such as the France 96 Technology Exhibition.
Gilles Louÿs
Office for Linguistic and Educational Cooperation, Bangkok
French in Singapore :
A promising future
Singapore’s multi-ethnic society has four official languages: Malay - the national language -, Mandarin, Tamil and English, the language used in administration, business and education. Unlike the situation with English and what is referred to as a « mother » tongue (specific to the ethnic group), learning a third language is not compulsory for young Singaporians (there are only one thousand pupils in secondary education). At university level, French is taught at all the establishments on the island. Some 1,000 students have enrolled French as an option at the four « Polytechnics » (equivalent to the University Institutes of Technology or IUT in France) and around 600 at the two universities.
Outside Singapore’s education system, there are two institutes worth mentioning. Firstly, United College, a private institute that recruits its pupils from the expatriate community and offers French courses to more than 800 pupils. And, more importantly, the Alliance française, undoubtedly the essential tool for teaching the language of Molière in Singapore. The Alliance offers training courses in all disciplines and attracts around 1,300 pupils to each two-month session. It is now considered a key cultural partner and is regularly contacted by the local authorities in order to participate in events as important as the International Film Festival or the International Arts Festival, which set the standard throughout Asia.
The Asian-European Foundation (ASEF), founded as part of the Euro-Asian Summit of 1996, is run jointly by a Singaporian and a Frenchman. Based in Singapore, this institution will undoubtedly contribute towards establishing French permanently in the region by setting up a political and economic partnership much sought after by both countries.
Roger Brunet
Official representative at the Alliance française
French in India :
A privileged status
The French language owes its presence in India to both a network of Alliances françaises (15 offices) and a solid basis for the language itself in secondary schools, where French is the first foreign language to be studied by pupils. The total number of individuals learning French is around 300,000 for 3,000 teachers. At higher education level, French is compulsory in vocational schools dedicated to tourism and to hotel catering. It is also taught at 40 universities, of which 12 have a department for French studies. These departments are often very dynamic as demonstrated by the decision of the University of Pondicherry to organise a major international colloquium in December, 1998 on the French-language literatures of Africa. The reason why French enjoys a privileged status in India is probably due to the successful decolonisation, in the fifties, of the five trading counters which France had owned in India since the 17th century. The best known of these counters is Pondicherry, which Nehru wanted to turn into « an open window on French culture ».
T.C.
China :
Awakening to the French-speaking world
While three million Chinese viewers are said to regularly watch the « Bienvenue en France » programmes broadcast by the central television, French as a language is well and truly absent in China, where it is studied by only 12,000 people, including 500 secondary school pupils. It comes only fifth in the rankings of foreign languages taught and is essentially a university subject. In cooperation with the cultural services of the French embassy, the French departments at Beijing and Canton universities have set up graduate courses with a twin bias in international trade, business, management and tourism, with the subjects taught in both languages. The French-speaking companies present in China are then the natural outlets for graduates of these courses.
The situation of French is better in Hong Kong, where 2,810 pupils learn French at primary school level, 1,930 at secondary level and around 900 at university. While French may be losing ground at the secondary level due to the emergence of Mandarin, there is a strong demand from the university specialties in which foreign languages are linked to company management, accounting and business in general. Finally, the Alliance française in Hong Kong attracts more than 5,000 students each year.
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