Start them young: in France, the pressure for bilingualism begins at birth
Families across France are adopting increasingly hands-on approaches to their children’s English-speaking abilities. (Image credits: Joseph Hanlon)
Six months working as an au pair in France provided me with a personal understanding of the culture and values there. Living with a French family and helping to bring up young children gave me a window into their parental values and the ways in which I, as a native English speaker, am valued in a changing world.
I had always planned to au pair in France during my gap year, and had hoped to be forced into fluency by totally and absolutely immersing myself in the French language. However, during the application process it quickly became clear that ‘host families’ looking for an English au pair to speak French were few and far between – my USP, it seemed, was my native English-ness. After months of frustrating delays (merci encore Covid) I was desperate to begin the adventure, so I ‘lowered my standards’, so to speak, and found a placement with a family in Lyon who wanted me to speak English to the children (both under five) in preparation for their professional futures (though I did succeed in negotiating a purely French-speaking relationship with the parents).
Ultimately, I was hired for my native English-speaking skills (it certainly wasn’t for my childcare experience, which was zero) and this is not unusual; in fact, almost all of my anglophone au pair friends were required to speak English with their ‘host family’. It is a reflection of the way that English language skills have become increasingly essential to the professional classes in France, and many parents are encouraging their children to start early – from birth in fact. Take the family I worked for as an example: the mother had been speaking English (her second language) to her children since they were born. Upon questioning, I was told this was in an effort to put her boys at an advantage in the employment market, where English language skills are invariably required for professional careers. Around France, families like this are preparing their children for future employment by teaching a second language alongside shapes and colours, which perhaps seems premature to us in the UK, but simply goes to show the value placed on English skills in France.
In Europe, English has for a while been viewed as the lingua franca, in both informal and professional contexts. Take Emily in Paris, for example. Whilst it remains a horrendously clichéd representation of the French professional sphere, the point still stands that Emily manages to navigate and thrive in her marketing career in Paris despite not speaking French. Indeed, English often earns the maxim “the language of business”. My ‘host parents’, both surgeons, recalled instances of non-French speaking patients with whom they had to communicate in English, and during my time in France I found that shop assistants and boulangerie-workers would reply to my questions in English as soon as they heard a whiff of my accent. Interestingly, many of them assumed I was German and believed English would be a common language between us.
The root of the English language’s merciless grasp à l’etranger can be found in the increasingly interconnected nature of business (if A-Level Geography taught me anything, it is that everything comes down to globalisation). International companies are changing their official languages to English as a more efficient alternative to translating board room meetings and other communications into several different languages, such as French food service company Sodexo which officially made the change in 2017.
It is vital to note here that my experience centres on middle-class families (described as aisées in French) and it cannot be said that this attitude to English is universal to every family in France. Indeed, France consistently ranks as one of the lowest in the EU on the English Proficiency Index, attaining number 34 globally in 2022. Whilst this is music to the ears of Eric Zemmour et al, many French blame the education system for this lag behind its neighbours the Netherlands and Germany, placed 1st and 10th respectively. In the EU, English is learnt by 93% of lower secondary pupils, and in the state school system, French students begin learning their second language at the age of eight. Yet the apparent lack of success of French schooling is encouraging families to turn to the same solution as my ‘host family’ and hire someone to speak English – if they can afford it, that is. It is becoming evident therefore that the French education system is exacerbating the education gap by not equipping pupils with the sufficient level of English required for employment, meaning the privileged children with au pairs or nannies are at an immediate advantage.
Despite these recent developments, however, it is not a new phenomenon that parents in Europe encourage their children to learn English and take measures such as hiring English au pairs. Culture, language, and its uses continue to develop, and my six months in France revealed but a snapshot in time to me. Yet it is clear that for certain societal groups in France, children are facing increased pressure to develop their English skills to get ahead on the international market, at home and abroad.