What is the point of learning French? In a notoriously monoglot nation such as ours, the answer is usually something along the lines of the old justification for forcing cod-liver oil down children’s throats: it is good for you.
It is time to realise that in many parts of the world, being expected to learn French is positively bad for you. If you were to emerge from school unable to add up, you would, rightly, be furious. Yet it is possible to finish schooling all over the world fluent in French but ignorant of the skill absolutely necessary get by in the global economy: English.
There is one big culprit for this absurd state of affairs. The bloc known as “La Francophonie” passes itself off as a pale imitation of the Commonwealth, if you can imagine anything quite so etiolated. Actually, the comparison is unfair to the Commonwealth , which is a well-meaning, low-key organisation doing good by stealth. La Francophonie has a more strident tone, promoting “active solidarity” (whatever that is) between member states, based on “the French language and its humanist values”.