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→Language: french academy
===Language===
===Language===
The French language derives from the vernacular Latin spoken by the Romans in [[Gaul]], although it includes some Celtic and Germanic words. Historically, French has been used as the international language of diplomacy and commerce. Today it remains one of six official languages at the [[United Nations]] and has been a unifying factor in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean.
The French language derives from the vernacular Latin spoken by the Romans in [[Gaul]], although it includes some Celtic and Germanic words. Historically, French has been used as the international language of diplomacy and commerce. Today it remains one of six official languages at the [[United Nations]] and has been a unifying factor in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean.
The French language is controlled by the French Academy (''L'Académie française''). As with much in France, there is a socialist tendency to want to control everything. The French language is no exception. Members of the Academy are appointed for life and this results in a very conservative approach to the changing demands on the language even going as far as banning words with an English origin. The French people (and other French speakers) often ignore the "correct" French and adopt modern English words. This can cause an even wider gap opening up between the cultural elite, who prefer to follow the official French even if it is many years and even decades out of date, and ordinary French speakers who prefer to have a more useful language. There have even been arguments between the government and the Academy over the introduction of "foreign" French words from countries like Belgium and Canada which the government is keen to use.
Some say that this painfully slow and traditional organization is strangling the French language and that it is their hatred of English that prevents them from accepting that English is the first international language replacing French.
===Religion===
===Religion===
The French state is non-religious - it has no sanctioned religion and is forbidden to do so by law, commonly referred to as ''laicité''. Since the beginning of the 20th century, state banning of religion in education and other state-funded activities created a large proportion of people who are atheists. It was common for teachers to preach atheism at schools and classroom prayer was forbidden. That has changed somewhat in recent decades with a large number of state-funded quasi-private religious schools, mostly Catholic.
The French state is non-religious - it has no sanctioned religion and is forbidden to do so by law, commonly referred to as ''laicité''. Since the beginning of the 20th century, state banning of religion in education and other state-funded activities created a large proportion of people who are atheists. It was common for teachers to preach atheism at schools and classroom prayer was forbidden. That has changed somewhat in recent decades with a large number of state-funded quasi-private religious schools, mostly Catholic.