Editing Language policy in France (section)

===French Revolution===
Prior to the [[French Revolution]] of 1789, French kings did not take a strong position on the language spoken by their subjects. However, in sweeping away the old provinces, [[parlement]]s and laws, the Revolution strengthened the unified system of administration across the state. At first, the revolutionaries declared liberty of language for all citizens of the Republic; this policy was subsequently abandoned in favour of the imposition of a common language which was to do away with the other languages of France. Other languages were seen as keeping the peasant masses in [[obscurantism]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}

The new idea was expounded in the 1794 ''Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the [[patois]] and to universalise the use of the French language''. Its author, [[Henri Grégoire]], deplored that France, the most advanced country in the world with regard to politics, had not progressed beyond the [[Tower of Babel]] as far as languages were concerned, and that only three million of the 25 million inhabitants of France spoke a pure [[Parisian French]] as their native tongue. The lack of ability of the population to understand the language in which were the political debates and the administrative documents was then seen as antidemocratic.<ref>{{Cite report |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Rapport_sur_la_n%C3%A9cessit%C3%A9_et_les_moyens_d%E2%80%99an%C3%A9antir_les_patois_et_d%E2%80%99universaliser_l%E2%80%99usage_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise |title=Rapport sur la nécessité et les moyens d'anéantir les patois et d'universaliser l'usage de la langue française |last=Grégoire |first=Henri |date=1794 |publisher=Convention nationale |location=Paris |pages=1–19 |language=fr |access-date=17 April 2021}}</ref>

The report resulted the same year in two laws which stated that the only language tolerated in France in public life and in schools would be French. Within two years, the French language had become the symbol of the national unity of the French State. However, the revolutionaries lacked both time and money to implement a language policy.