In this global world, U.S. students need to have more — not fewer — opportunities to learn at least one major foreign language — and out of a wider choice, not a more limited one.
The learning of a foreign language is a tremendous asset to anyone who is looking for a job in this economy.
We submit that far from French being a "passé" language, French indeed is spoken in 55 countries by close to 200 million people.
In the Americas, it is spoken in Quebec, French Guyana, Louisiana, the French Caribbean, and Haiti. It is also a tremendously important vehicular language in most of Africa and in the Arab World.
Regarding business opportunities available to French speakers, Québec, France, Belgium and Switzerland are major leaders in industries such as aerospace, nuclear energy, biotechnologies, food engineering and pharmaceuticals.
At the French engineering school ESTACA (Ecole Supérieure de Techniques Aéronautiques et de Construction Automobile), one of the world's leading schools in aerospace engineering, 11 percent of the students are Chinese!
Locally, with about 240 French affiliates in the state of Georgia, France itself creates about 11,300 jobs.
Finally, French is an official language in international institutions, such as the United Nations, and is widely used in international development.
French-speakers are in high demand at Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Peace Corps. Both send thousands of employees to Francophone countries worldwide.
A case in point: the Peace Corps has recently contacted the Consulate General of France in Atlanta in order to find about 100 French-speaking candidates for postings available in West Africa.
We would be delighted to see an increase in the number of American students learning a foreign language, whatever that language might be.
In view of the above, it is not a bad choice to learn French as a foreign language if one desires to become a citizen of the world.
Ginette Chenard is delegate of the Québec Government Office in Atlanta. She is also writing on behalf of the consulates of Belgium, Canada, France and Switzerland, the Alliance Française of Atlanta and the French-American Chamber of Commerce.
Editor’s note: This essay is in rebuttal to a July 6 guest column, No more French, s’il vous plait , which questioned the utility of Georgia students learning French
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