This volume combines proceedings from conferences held in November and December 2024. The first concerns the royal ordonnance of 1539, historically considered the legal act that made French the language of government. Subsequent round table discussions address language policies relating to minority languages in France and the “Loi Toubon” (1994) which requires, with varying degrees of success, the use of French in government, consumer services, education, the workplace, and advertising.
The first half of this volume includes meticulously researched texts concerning the 1539 ordonnance issued in Villers-Cotterêts. Michel Zink’s opening speech outlines the relationship between Latin and French before Villers-Cotterêts. Latin was the language of the Church and the law. In the 13th century, French entered the legal domain, with translations of Latin legal texts (Tancred of Bologna, Justinian), creating a technical legal language for French. The diversity of customary law led to the first ordonnance on legal practice, requiring local customary law to be written down in French and approved by the Parlement of Paris (1454).
Ater presenting the historical lineage of the ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts in the session on Le français avant Villers-Cotterêts, Anne Rousselet-Pimont traces the debates about who actually wrote the text. The standard answer is Guillaume Poyet, the Chancellor of France from 1538 to 1542. After a thorough analysis of other theories, and of other articles of the ordonnance, Rousselet-Pimont concludes that Poyet was indeed the author. Roseline Claerr then takes us through the steps that would lead to the production of a parchment version, the distribution of the parchment copies to the regional courts, the official recording of the ordonnance, and the subsequent printed versions. The official recording was fraught with multiple objections to various articles, much to the King’s irritation. Ultimately, in most jurisdictions, the injunction to use only French was followed almost immediately.
The next session, entitled Diffusion, réception et mythologie : De l’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts, opens with Xavier Prévost who reveals the role this ordonnance played in changing the record of laws and legal decisions from manuscript to printed editions. While there are a few laws printed with royal privilege before 1539, the financial success of three Parisian printers who shared the privilege for the ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts inspired a rapid growth in the publication of legal documents. Next, Charles Baud wonders why the ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts is still frequently invoked to this day, even though other laws, such as the 1992 reform of the French constitution, would make such mentions unnecessary. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many court decisions rejected the use of regional languages, citing the ordonnance. It was even cited in a 2018 court decision concerning the use of écriture inclusive. The ordonnance has 192 articles but only two are remembered today, those concerning the use of French in official acts. Politicians and historians alike have viewed them as establishing the link between the nation and its language. However, as Olivia Carpi reminds us, the ordonnance really addressed only written legal language with the goal of shortening trials and making legal procedures more comprehensible to all participants. In Une ordonnance sans équivalent ? Étude du cas anglais, Aude Mairey provides an interesting comparison of the ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts with the linguistic component of Henry VIII’s Act of Union (1536) in the United Kingdom, which required all legal acts in Wales to be in English.
Mireille Huchon opens the round table discussion En langaige maternel françois et non autrement by exploring the literary, lexicological and grammatical context that preceded and followed the ordonnance. The first French grammar appeared nine years earlier (in English), the first dictionaries in the decade following the ordonnance, including the first legal dictionary (1545). Many of the contributors, and most specifically Bernard Cerquiglini, evoke the ambiguity of the final phrase of article 111, en langaige maternel françois, which could be interpreted as “in the maternal language of French subjects” or “in the French language” (of the Parisian elite). The second interpretation has dominated. After 1539, almost all legal records were recorded in French, even in regions where French was not the vernacular. From the Revolution on, the courts have imposed this “jacobin” interpretation, though partisans of minority language rights have frequently challenged it, especially since the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (1992).
The second colloquium, Histoire de la politique des langues depuis 1789, mostly concerns policies that restrict or encourage minority languages, starting with the Abbé Grégoire’s 1794 report encouraging the elimination of linguistic diversity in the new nation. Numerous contributors discuss the fate of regional languages (Corsican, Breton, etc.), from the Revolution on. Geraldine Chavrier’s contribution on the legal decisions that have shut the door on most uses of regional languages is particularly informative.
The contributions in the final section, La langue de la république, are mostly from political actors, including the former Minister of Culture, Jacques Toubon, who crafted the 1994 law. The comments are, with few exceptions, laudatory and uncritical. For the government, the law is crucial in defending the right for consumers, employees and citizens using government services to use French. The application of the law is the most controversial in the realm of higher education and in advertising. Although Antoine Compagnon is “absolutely convinced of the benefits of the loi Toubon,” (p. 143) he laments the fact that in France the hard sciences are conducted almost entirely in English, which calls into question Xavier North’s assertion about French as a right (p. 194). Other participants in the round table cite egregious contraventions of the law in public signs. A Harris poll revealed the generational difference in attitudes towards the law – 70% of people over 65 were disturbed by these violations, as opposed to just 18% of the 18-24-year-olds. In his annex to the colloquium, Jean-Marc Sauvé fears that these generational and class divisions put at risk the national unity based on a common language and urges stricter enforcement of the law.
Are these fears real? Some aspects of the Loi Toubon are simply ineffectual and unenforceable when confronted by global commerce and politics. While the first half of this volume presents thorough and compelling research on the origins of French language policy, the second half is better seen as reflecting official positions, often ignored by other officials, including the President of the Republic.
