"French people, speak English!"

I didn't say that. It was Frédéric Martel. He's French, and he's written a book (in French) with the English title "Mainstream". Says Martel: "If the French want to exist in the world today, they must speak English." The language of Simone de Beauvoir and Liliane Bettencourt is increasingly associated with an aristocratic elite and ageing bureaucrats terrified of linguistic change, says Martel. It's a "fossilised language."

Writing in Le Point, in an article titled "Français, pour exister, parlez English! " (French people, to exist, speak English!), Martel recently made fun of the attempts of French politicians to stop the spread of English. For example, former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin wants all French people who have top jobs in international organisations, where English is the common language, to speak French, while Alain Joyandet, a junior minister who recently resigned, wants to ban words like "chat" from the Internet and replace it with éblabla, instead.

This is crazy, says Martel. Today, many French people will write un post on Twitter and wear un jean slim because it's très trendy. The combination of modern communications technologies and the dynamic culture of the banlieues means that the language of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sébastien Chabal is changing, regardless of what the aristocrats and the bureaucrats believe.

But isn't this English invasion a bad thing? "It doesn't matter," writes Martel. "We just need to understand the new geopolitical reality of the world and accept the fact that our population is minimal, our universalism less attractive and our language little spoken."

Aïe!