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France to have reference to «regional languages» inserted in its Constitution

The decision to change the Constitution is significant, because the calls for the regional languages to be taken into consideration have been voiced over a long period of time. Two weeks prior to this, a majority in the National Assembly had rejected a similar proposal to amend Article 2 of the Constitution to include a reference to regional languages. However, the constitutional recognition of the Republic's languages seems to have come about in the end as a result of pressure brought to bear by the social movement inside the French State and different international organisations (including the UN).

However, some social organisations that support these languages including Euskal Konfederazioa, which brings together the different organisations that support Basque (Seaska, AEK, Uda Leku ...), do not believe that this amendment will lead to any significant change in France's language policy.

Indeed, the reference to regional languages due to be added to Article 1 of the Constitution is linked to the fact they are part of the Republic's heritage, and the reference could end up as something merely symbolic. By contrast, Article 2, which establishes French as the language of the Republic and guarantees its public use will remain as it is, untouched.

The reference to French in Article 2 of the Constitution was included when the Treaty of Maastricht was signed in 1992. Article 2 of the Constitution was amended when the following sentence was added: "La langue de la République est le français"; the apparent reason for this was to be able to declare the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, drawn up by the European Council that same year and which might come into effect, unconstitutional in France.

In 1999, France's Constitutional Commission ruled that the Charter was not compatible with the Republic's Constitution, and so if France wanted to ratify it, the Constitution would need to be amended. France has yet to ratify the Charter and it does not look as though this amendment to the Constitution that has been approved will open up the way for this.

In 2002, the French National Assembly proposed that the following amendment (in italics) be added to Article 2 of the Constitution: "…la langue de la République est le Français… dans le respect et la défense des langues régionales, qui font partie de son patrimoine", in other words, French is the language of the Republic… while the regional languages are respected and defended because they are part of its heritage, but it was not passed. It is clear that the reference approved just recently is more limited than the one proposed at that time.

So, it remains to be seen how far the amendment recently passed by the National Assembly will go; in other words, whether it will just be of symbolic value or whether it could lead to effective measures in favour of other languages apart from French in the Republic's language policy.


Paula Kasares
Professor of the University of Navarra.