Learn french in France - French language school - Course on the riviera

General information

• The French-speaking areas cover a group of about sixty countries, populated by about 500 million citizens today who speak French.
  Among these countries, some of their populace utilize the French language entirely, others use it only partly; and, for others it represents only a foreign language controlled by a more or less major part of the population, and these others do not care anymore about teaching French to their children. If one considers the number of persons who can indeed express themselves in French, the figure must be brought back to a level on the order of 200 million people. It appears so, in a obvious way, that the notion of a French-speaking person is more vast today than in its original sense (1880) of : all the people having French in the world as mother or second tongue.
  
  
• The reason for some is simple. The term French-speaking areas had been a purely geographical notion in about the last 20 years as the expression of a voluntarist political group whom speak French and are learning French despite the decline of the French language in the world.
  

• The French language is an Indo-European language, as German and English or Russian. But it is a Romance language, stemming from Latin, as Italian, Spanish, etc, whereas German and English belong to the group of germanic languages (more precisely, in western germanic), although English owes a good part of its vocabulary to the French language. This is always a surprise for the English-speaking persons who are set on learning French.
  
  
• The solemn promise of Strasbourg (842) marks the end of struggle between the grandchildren of Charlemagne. Having conquered Lothaire, Charles the Bald and Louis the Germanic meet in Strasbourg finally to confirm their alliance, in front of their troops, by this solemn promise. Charles and Louis’ soldiers pronounce it in language tudesque (which is already from German); Louis and Charles’ soldiers pronounce it in Romance language (which is already the shadow of French language). Expressions of this solemn promise, recorded by Historian Nithard, constitute therefore the most ancient texts which reach us in French language and in German language.