Chères Amies, chers Amis,

In my capacity as President of our branch of the Alliance Française (AF) of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, I had the great pleasure and distinct honor of attending the 140 th Anniversary Celebration of the AF in Paris in late July.

It was a glorious meeting of some 500 delegates from every continent. Over three days of plenary and break-out sessions, we were constantly reminded of the raison d’être and mission of the AF: to promote an appreciation of French language and culture.

It is helpful to remember that the AF was born in 1873 shortly after the France’s disastrous battlefield defeat in the Franco-Prussian war which culminated in the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and a brief civil war in Paris known as the Commune.  In response, in what was surely the first concerted effort of using “soft-power”, an idea
of using the beauty and universality of the French language to propagate an appreciation of French culture and civilization was born.  It has succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations. There are now some 829 chapters of the AF in 135 countries, including over 300 in the Americas.  And just over the last few years - including the pandemic - with regularity new chapters have been opened around the world.  The AF is now by far the largest cultural institute in the world.

But let’s face it: AF faces strong headwinds in convincing non-natives to learn French. English remains the one indispensable language, the world’s lingua franca, just as French was once the international language of high culture and diplomacy. Today, if someone is to invest the time and effort of learning a foreign language, it will most likely be English or Spanish.  French, by contrast, except for someone being sent to a Francophone country for work, is a language of choice, a decision that the hard work involved is worth the effort.  And, I would argue, it is indeed.

French culture and civilization are inexhaustibly rich: from the writings of any of the 16 Nobel Prize laureates in Literature (more than any other country,)  to the breath-taking architecture of Notre Dame de Paris (in reconstruction after the disastrous fire of April 2019), Chartres, the Loire Valley castles, the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe to the great haute couture designers from Yves Saint Laurent to Christian Dior and to the endless magic of French gastronomy.

AF’s mission is dual: to aid voyagers on their journey of mastering French and joining the united world of
Francophonie so that they might then fully appreciate the profoundly satisfying wealth of French culture.  And make no mistake: the two-go hand in hand. It is impossible to fully grasp French culture without understanding the French language, and one cannot by the same token, truly understand a language without an appreciation of the country’s culture.  One gains a greater appreciation of the French language as one learns about its culture and conversely, to
truly appreciate the majesty of French culture, mastering the French language is a prerequisite.

And that is why the AF’s mission remains as relevant as ever. English may indeed be the language understood worldwide.  Yet France and French remain beloved in the hearts and minds of wide swaths of humanity. English may well be language of prose, while French will always be the language of poetry.
And we all need some poetry in our lives.

Merci,

Edmund Tiryakian
Board President of AF Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill