Is the French language in decline?
Newspaper headlines often focus on a supposed ‘decline’ of the French language - we look at whether it is true
The number of students learning French at UK universities has rapidly declined
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Over the past year, several articles discussing the so-called “decline” of the French language have been appearing in publications both in France and across the world, but is this really the case?
In schools and universities in the UK, there are reports that the number of students studying modern foreign languages is sharply declining, with French in particular seeing a fall.
The numbers of UK university students enrolled in full-time French studies fell from 9,700 in 2012/13 to 3,700 by 2023/24, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa).
In addition, for the first time ever more students are studying Spanish at GCSE than French.
Meanwhile, in France, ‘Franglais’ continues to work its way into everyday spoken French, and businesses are not hard pressed to find French natives fluent in English to conduct important international meetings.
Anecdotally, people talk of anglicisms being used during French radio interviews, on TV shows, or even on the news, with the assumption that everyone will understand their meaning.
How often people use English increases greatly in the big towns and cities, where there is a more international population and higher number of students, compared to more rural areas of France where the usage of anglicisms is much lower.
In larger and younger cities, you will hear people talk of their ‘dates’ instead of rendez-vous or rancard, their ‘deadlines’ instead of dernier delai, and concerts ‘en live’ instead of en direct.
The anglicisms are particularly prevalent among the younger generations - only 28% of Gen Z said they never used anglicisms during a study carried out by Preply in 2025.
Is the doom-mongering fair?
These changes have provoked headlines announcing that the French language is in decline.
However, this is not the viewpoint of Géraldine Moinard, director of editing of Le Petit Robert de la langage française.
During an interview with RTBF, Ms Moinard discussed the evolution of French: “[French] won’t disappear but it will evolve. At the Petit Robert, we have, every year, 150 new words or expressions that enter the dictionary, and most are not anglicisms.”
She used the example of how words go in and out of fashion in France; recently, “daron”, which is a very old word to mean parent, has been reclaimed by young people and is used very often in their everyday language.
The idea that French is in decline is not at all reflected in the numbers;
France remains the fifth most spoken language in the world, after English, Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish, with 321 million speakers according to the OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie).
Meanwhile, on social media, French is the fourth most-used language.
Outside of mainland France itself, the language is growing rapidly in Africa, where it is the bureaucratic language or major second language in several countries, as wellas a communication tool between groups in these countries who speak different native or tribal languages.
The number of French speakers is set to rise to 700 million by 2050 the OIF estimates, with 80% of these speakers living in Africa.
Borrowing words is not a new phenomena
Even the frequent usage of anglicisms is not a new phenomenon.
For centuries, languages have borrowed words from each other, integrating them into their own lexic until they become established in the language itself.
Read about the words English borrowed from French here.
So is French really in danger?
Ultimately, it is a fear that has been hovering around for years: an article published by the Académie française in 2001 begins “Ce cri d’alarme, chargé de détresse et parfois de colère, nous l’entendons chaque jour et partout : le français perd sa place dans le monde ! Le français est en déclin !” (This cry of alarm, filled with distress and sometimes anger, we hear it every day and everywhere: French is losing its standing in the world! French is in decline!)
It is something people have always been concerned about, and probably always will be concerned about.
France used to be the language of prestige and diplomacy across Europe, spoken by the upper classes in nations from England to Russia and used for most communications (this history is where the English phrase ‘lingua franca’ originates).
Although the French language may always be changing, the claim that it is in decline is not reflected in the facts.
