Baroness Ashton speaks for Europe, in English

There was a time when faltering French would have been unthinkable for a leading European bureaucrat. After all, French was the most important diplomatic language, and every international civil servant spoke it fluently. But the times are changing, or to put it another way, autre temps, autres mœurs ("other days, other ways").

When Baroness Catherine Ashton of Upholland, the high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy, tries to speak French, Paris is not amused. In fact, the French are more worried than ever, because they fear that the diplomatic service she is now creating will be completely anglophone.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former French prime minister, who is President Nicolas Sarkozy's special envoy to promote French, was said to be alarmed following a recent visit to Brussels. In the past decade, the EU has changed from being a stronghold of French-speaking diplomacy to adopting English as its de facto working language. And the concern now is that this trend will be accelerated by the new diplomatic service.

Baroness Ashton has a starting salary of £328,000 (€365,000) a year, making her the highest paid British politician, and the highest paid female politician in the world. The European Union's first head of foreign policy is also provided with a chauffeured car and a staff of 20.