Francophonie: the message from Louise Mushikiwabo, General Secretary to Francophonie.

En français, s’il vous plaît #malanguefrançaise

General Secretary of Francophonie Louise Mushikiwabo’s message during the International Francophonie Day on march 20, 2019

My French language is a language uniting 88 States and governments members of the Francophonie with shared values and challenges to face together.
This language exceeds geographic boundaries, ideological barriers and religious differences. This language forges so many friendships and creates so many beautiful synergies in our big French-speaking family.

My French language is a language of solidarity and development, it’s the language of education, access to knowledge, to professional training, and the language that is determined to put the young on the path to employment. This is the language of exchange and sharing of good practices.

In me, a citizen of the world, a deeply African individual and a native of this village called “Rwanda”, my French language lives and goes together with my other languages, my mother and national tongue, Kinyarwanda, and my other work languages, English and Swahili. This is what my French language is about, this language that, without restrictions, establishes itself, lives and settles in a multilingual context.

And you, whether you are from the North or the South, whether you live close to the desert dunes or on snowy plains, in rural areas or one of our modern metropolis,
You, who have the chance to be part of the 300 million people who, all over the world, speak French, to you too, who decided to add French to your range of languages, as of today, March 20^th, International Francophonie Day, what is your French language?

As General Secretary of Francophonie, I want us to lead practical and realistic actions together to reposition our common language. Let’s give back to the French language a true visibility on the international scene, let’s ensure a stronger presence on the Web, in the media and in everyday life. Let it still be a language of creation, innovation, the language of law, science, technologies, economy... And above all, let’s encourage all initiatives in favour of an education of quality.

Let’s work together to make French language shine.

Together, we can share much, much more... And all this en français, s’il vous plaît!