Language switch in France, when will happen?

Alessandro   Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:56 pm GMT
Concentration camps were not "invented" by Italian:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_internment_camps
angry   Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:17 am GMT
<<The racism in here is unbelievable. >>

It's not our fault. Who would not be racist at the hands of such a fascist state as France? They think the Territoire Militaire still exists and they are annihilating the great language Occitan as well as Breton and many other gems. Why are they such fucking cunts? Even China is more permitting to their subjects.
Blanc   Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:52 am GMT
"Who would not be racist at the hands of such a fascist state as France? "

Many countries (Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, Czechia, USA, Algeria, Morocco) tried or are trying to make minority languages illegal.

France NEVER did. NEVER.
Period.

Occitan is slowly dying out just like Gaelic is dying out in Scotland and Ireland — Just because people do not want to use it, that's all.
Blanc   Sun Mar 08, 2009 2:00 am GMT
I should add that the French language suffers more political repression in Europe than any other.
In Flanders, there are around Brussels, on Flemish territory, several towns with an overwhelming French speaking majority. But democratically elected mayors have been declared illegal by Flemish authorities because they used the language of their voters.
The most blatant case of ethnical cleansing in Western Europe takes place in Val-d'Aoste, once an entirely French speaking region that disgracefully belongs to fucking filthy Italy.
Sieg Heil   Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:31 am GMT
Do not worry, we will ethnically cleane of all the untermenschen from Europe once we regain control of the Fatherland again.
Truth   Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:57 am GMT
"Concentration camps were not "invented" by Italian"

Yes, first concentration camp was used by the British military during the Boer War (1899-1902). Facing attack by Boer guerrillas, British forces rounded up the Boer women and children as well as black people living on Boer land, and sent them to 34 tented camps scattered around South Africa. This was done as part of a scorched earth policy to deny the boer guerrillas access to the supplies of food and clothing they needed to continue the war.

The camps were situated at Aliwal North, Balmoral, Barberton, Belfast, Bethulie, Bloemfontein, Brandfort, East London, Heidelberg, Heilbron, Howick, Irene, Kimberley, Klerksdorp, Kroonstad, Krugersdorp, Merebank, Middelburg, Norvalspont, Nylstroom, Pietermaritzburg, Pietersburg, Pinetown, Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom, Springfontein, Standerton, Turffontein, Vereeniging, Volksrust, Vredefort, Vryburg and Winburg.

Though they were not extermination camps, the women and children of Boer men who were still fighting were given smaller rations than others. The poor diet and inadequate hygiene led to endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths — a report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boer (of whom 22,074 were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the camps. In all, about 25% of the Boer inmates and 12% of the black African ones died (although recent research suggests that the black African deaths were underestimated and may have actually been around 20,000).

In contrast to these figures, only around 3,000 Boer men were killed (in combat) during the Second Boer War.

A delegate of the South African Women and Children's Distress Fund, Emily Hobhouse, did much to publicise the distress of the inmates on her return to Britain after visiting some of the camps in the Orange Free State. Her fifteen-page report caused uproar, and led to a government commission, the Fawcett Commission, visiting camps from August to December 1901 which confirmed her report. They were highly critical of the running of the camps and made numerous recommendations, for example improvements in diet and provision of proper medical facilities. By February 1902 the annual death-rate dropped to 6.9% and eventually to 2%. Improvements made to the white camps were not as swiftly extended to the black camps. Hobhouse's pleas went mostly unheeded in the latter case.
Guest   Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:23 am GMT
Many countries (Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, Czechia, USA, Algeria, Morocco) tried or are trying to make minority languages illegal.

France NEVER did. NEVER.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
to Blanc   Sun Mar 08, 2009 6:21 pm GMT
Maybe, aggressive propagating of French language in Belgium is one of the reasons of possible Belgium split.
CommonAswhole   Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:24 pm GMT
"In Flanders, there are around Brussels, on Flemish territory, several towns with an overwhelming French speaking majority. But democratically elected mayors have been declared illegal by Flemish authorities because they used the language of their voters. "

Know your history. They are the facility municipalities. Facilities were there for the French speaking minority living there, not a way of increasing the number of francophones over time.
Look at the town of Comines, they also had facilities for Flemish people. At least Flemish don't spread their Dutch, but heck we don't have the superiority complex French have.

Read this article: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=9C07E3DC103EE333A25753C3A9679D946397D6CF

This is blatently French imperialistic mentality.

BTW, who do we talk Flemish according to these idiots? We speak Dutch. Flemish dialects are spoken in the provincies of old medieval Western and Eastern Flanders only.
Always these belgophiles call our language Flemish, and in the past they have tried to create a separate Flemish language that breaks away from Dutch. You francophones don't all speak Walloon do you? Of course you don't.

In Brussels the majority speaks French nowadays, while it used to be a Dutch-speaking town. Good thing the franskiljon bourgoisie lead by Didier Reynders of the MR and his FDF buddies over there is having a taste of its own medicin now. You see, francophones have used North African immigrants to spread the French language and wipe out the Dutch one in Brussels. These North African immigrants have lost their identity and even frown upon their own native Berber language (they're ghetto-proletariats in need of a cultural root).
The point is, many francophones don't feel at home in the impoverishment and crime that overwhelms Brussels nowadays. These Maghrebins themselves know francophones are just (ab)using them.

Flemish people should realize that these subjective 'enemies' of the contemporary Bruxelois/Brusseleer are objective 'allies' of the Flemish. These people are victim of an aggressive francophonic linguistic imperialism just like Flemish were and still are.
wellwell   Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:58 pm GMT
Agree with post Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:24 pm GMT .
Efforts of Flemish people to defend rights of Dutch language in Belgium sometimes is treating like "nationalism" by some French speaking massmedia,but propagating of French language in Flanders is treating like "patriotism" by the same massmedia.It's total absurd.
Why most of francophones (politicians too with rare exceptions) in Belgium don't speak,don't learn Dutch language,as Flemish people speak and learn French? Is this ignorance?
Blanc   Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:23 pm GMT
"Efforts of Flemish people to defend rights of Dutch language in Belgium sometimes is treating like "nationalism" by some French speaking massmedia"

NO, this is no legitimate nationalism, this is Stalinism or Nazism, period.

"Belgian mayors row faces Council of Europe vote
01 December 2008, 23:18 CET

(STRASBOURG) - The Council of Europe could put Belgium's local government system on probation Tuesday after a row over a Flemish minister barring three democratically-elected Francophone mayors from taking office."
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1228153622.23

This is unparalleled in any other European country.
Except in Muslim Albanian Kossovo.
to Blanc   Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:36 pm GMT
LANGUAGE POLICY
Assimilation policies
A policy of assimilation is one that uses strong measures to accelerate the downsizing of one or more linguistic minority group(s).The ultimate goal of such policies is to foster national unity inside a state (based on the idea that a single language in the country will favor that end). The measures taken by States enforcing such policies may include banning the social use of a given language, the exclusion and social devalorization of a language group and in extreme cases repression by force and even genocide. [3]

These policies are to be distinguished from all other policies which it could be argued favor or lead to assimilation of members of minority groups as a result of non-intervention or insufficient measures of protection. In practice, all States enforce, implicitly, policies leading to assimilation with regards to immigrant groups and in numerous cases aboriginal groups and other national minorities.[4]

Jurisdictions having such a policy:

Burma - Indonesia - Iran - Iraq - Thailand - Vietnam - France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy
LANGUAGE POLICY IN FRANCE
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European convention (ETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe, ratified and implemented by 17 States, but not by France (as of 2007[update]).

The charter contains 98 articles of which signatories must adopt a minimum of 35 (France signed 39).

The signing, and the failure to have it ratified, provoked a public debate in French society over the charter.

One argument[by whom?] against was the fear of the break-up of France "one and indivisible" leading to the threat of "babelism", "balkanization" and then ethnic separatism if the charter were to be implemented, and that therefore there should be only one language recognised in the French state: the French language. This was also linked to a wider debate about how power should be apportioned between the national and local governments.

Another was that in an era where a widely spoken language like French was threatened with becoming irrelevant in the global arena, especially in economic, technical and scientific contexts, officially supporting regional languages was a mere waste of government resources.

As an example of what proponents of ratification considered racist and scornful, here is a sample quote from an article in Charlie Hebdo, a well-known satirical journal:

The aborigines are going to be able to speak their patois, oh sorry, their language, without being laughed at. And even keep their accent, that is their beret and their clogs.
Likewise, President Jacques Chirac, putting an end to the debate, argued that it would threaten "the indivisibility of the Republic," "equality in front of the Law" and "the unity of the French people," since it may end by conferring "special rights to organised linguistic communities."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_France
THE TOUBON LAW
The Toubon Law (full name: law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language), is a law of the French government mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, in advertisements, in the workplace, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in government-financed schools, and some other contexts. The law does not concern private, non-commercial communications, such as non-commercial web publications by private bodies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_Toubon
CommonAswhole   Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:37 pm GMT
There's no talking to you. It's francophones who relentlesly immigrated there, not vice versa. How would you react if Flemish would move in the Wallonian periphery and spread the Dutch language and politics there in 50 years?

Ah, you are thinking about Voeren now. Guess what, Voeren was 95% Dutch speaking in 1848. Nowadays the majority still speaks Dutch and it will be forever Dutch speaking. Yet, Wallonians claim it and even voted for a Fleming-hating mayor José Happart, for it was once part of Liège during the Prince-Bishopric of Liège era too long ago.
We aren't claiming French Flanders are we? We are at least realistic enough to know that French Flanders is French now and used to be Flemish in the Middle Ages but that times are achanging.
CommonAswhole   Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:40 pm GMT
By the way, you using terms like nazism or stalinism, you should learn about real injustice in the world. You're like a hardcore zionist shouting antisemitism for criticism about the probable use of white phosphor in the Gaza strip.
Guest   Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:26 pm GMT
Wait, is blanc really a chauvinistic, racist frenchman?