TED Case Studies

French Ban on Use of English in French Web Sites

IDENTIFICATION
LEGAL CLUSTERS
GEOGRAPHIC CLUSTERS
TRADE CLUSTERS
ENVIRONMENT CLUSTERS
OTHER FACTORS

I. Identification

1. The Issue

In December 1996, two French groups which are dedicated to the preservation of the French language filed lawsuits against a Georgia Tech University campus located in the city of Metz, France. These groups, the Association for the Defense of the French Language and the Future of the French Language, targeted the Georgia Tech campus because its website is written in English. The lawsuits have invoked the specifics of the Toubon Law, which is named for a past Minister of Culture and requires that French must be used in all advertisements in France. The Toubon Law has been one of several measures taken by French authorities to preserve their language in the midst of a perceived English (American) invasion. The Police Court of Paris dismissed the lawsuits on June 9, 1997 for procedural reasons, but the nature of the case has raised many concerns regarding the propriety of laws and regulations in cyberspace.

2. Description

The French have always felt culturally threatened by the ever-increasing use of English in conversation, television and movies; however, the “Anglophone Internet” has given French purists increasing cause for alarm. As such, these purists have banded together to invoke the 1994 law named for the then-Minister of Culture, Jacques Toubon, which requires that all products advertised in France be translated into French terms. Two groups in particular, the Association for the Defense of the French Language and the Future of the French Language, are using the Toubon Law to demand that information on web sites which come from France must be in French.

The reality of the issue came to light in 1996 when the two groups filed lawsuits against the Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, because its campus in Metz, in eastern France, has published a web site which is written primarily in English. French purists feel that because the web site was established in France, it should be written in French. In reality, the web site gives information on the courses which are offered at the campus; however, those courses are given in English by American professors and they are offered to students with the understanding that all students are expected to speak English.

The director of the Georgia Tech campus in Metz, Hans Puttgen, was strongly opposed to the idea behind the lawsuit. “We offer graduate-level education in engineering and management an as a result we also propagate French culture, savoir-faire, art de vivre, as well as the French language. The French should be congratulating us instead of pursuing us in court.”

The content of the web sites is not the sole issue for the French. Instead they feel threatened by the English-dominated Internet, which Toubon himself has referred to as “a new form of colonialism.” While Anglophones are certainly not attempting to revert to colonialism, the statistics certainly uphold the reasoning behind the words. On the Internet, about 90% of the communication is in English, and only 5% is in French. Francophones are left feeling as if the very survival of their culture is at stake.

As the Internet grows exponentially in usage, the French, who have been reluctant to discard the Minitel system which have grown to love, have been somewhat left behind in terms of technology. Today, there are less than four computers connected to the Internet for every 1,000 residents in France; however, in the United States, that ratio stands at 31 per 1,000. Another component to the problem is that many French companies themselves have chosen to conduct their business on-line in English, as they feel that most of their customers do understand English instead of French.

Many in the French government are encouraging a more positive approach. Some insist that programs in French are growing on the Internet and software companies are developing programs which would automatically translate E-mail and web pages. Still, many from the “old guard, “ like the 360-year-old Academie Francaise, are standing their ground on the issue and have brought the Toubon Law to the forefront once again as legal backing for their opinions.

While the lawsuit against the Georgia Tech campus was dismissed merely for procedural reasons, the issue of regulation of cyberspace still remains. The infinite nature of the World Wide Web defies the reality of laws and regulations, although the question of the locale of web site registration may have some validity in the case of language. The French feel, quite simply, that if the web site is coming from France, they should have the right to understand what it says and to learn what is going on in their own country. Many feel, however, that to apply rules and regulations to the Internet would be to defy the casual way in which it has evolved.

The bottom line may be that companies and governments will need to comply with what best benefits their country financially. For France, the reality is that their efforts to provide Internet access solely in French have been less than profitable. For Infonie, a company which offers such access, this is certainly true: its share price has fallen more than 70% and the company has attracted less than half of the expected subscribers. “French Only” seems to be a losing proposition for the French.

While the French are viewing this situation as menacing to the survival of their culture, it is simply an opportunity for greater cultural expansion. They can only benefit from participating fully in the possibilities of the World Wide Web; however, to refrain from participating because of an impending cultural threat would be to lose out, educationally as well as financially.