Editing Francization (section)

=== France <span class="anchor" id="Within France"></span> ===
{{see also|French colonial empire|Vergonha|Language policy in France}}

"Francization" is also used to mean any of many cultural assimilation policies implemented by French authorities since the [[French Revolution]]. These aimed to impose or maintain the dominance of the French language and French culture. Before the Revolution, French was still a minority language in France by number of speakers, but was the prestige language.  The [[Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts]] under King [[Francis I of France]] prescribed the official use of the French language, the [[langue d'oïl]] dialect spoken at the time in the [[Île-de-France]], in all documents. Other languages, such as Occitan, began to disappear as written languages.

With the decline of Latin, French became increasingly important for writing. Often, people were encouraged or compelled to adopt French, thereby developing a French identity at the expense of their existing one. Use of other languages was often suppressed. This occurred, for example, among the [[Alemannic German|Alemannic]]-speaking inhabitants of [[Alsace]] and the [[Lorraine Franconian]]-speaking inhabitants of Lorraine after these regions were conquered by [[Louis XIV]] during the seventeenth century, to the [[Flemings]] in [[French Flanders]], to the [[Occitans]] in [[Occitania]], and to [[Basque people|Basque]]s, [[Breton people|Breton]]s, [[Catalan people|Catalan]]s, [[Corsican people|Corsican]]s and [[Niçard dialect|Niçard]]s. [[Corsica]] passed from the [[Republic of Genoa]] to France in 1769 after the [[Treaty of Versailles (1768)|Treaty of Versailles]]. [[Italian language|Italian]] was the official language of Corsica until 1859.<ref>Abalain, Hervé, (2007) ''Le français et les langues historiques de la France'', Éditions Jean-Paul Gisserot, p.113</ref> Francization occurred in Corsica, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mediterraneo-e-lingua-italiana_%28Enciclopedia-dell%27Italiano%29/|title=Mediterraneo e lingua italiana|access-date=2 November 2021|language=it}}</ref>

Shortly after the fall of the [[Ancien Régime]], the new revolutionary government adopted a policy of promotion of French as a unifying and modernizing language, simultaneously denigrating the status of minority languages as bulwarks of feudalism, Church control of the state, and backwardness in general. In less than a year after coming to power (1792), the Committee for Public Instruction mandated that the newly expanded public education be fortified by sending French-speaking teachers to areas that spoke other languages.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/francophonie/HIST_FR_s8_Revolution1789.htm#4_Linstruction_publique_|title=Histoire du français: La Révolution française et la langue nationale|website=www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca|access-date=2016-05-06}}</ref> This programme achieved many of its aims during the 19th century: by the 1860s, nearly 80% of the national population could speak French.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/francophonie/HIST_FR_s9_Fr-contemporain.htm#1_Le_r%C3%B4le_de_lInstruction_publique_dans_lapprentissage_du_fran%C3%A7ais_|title=Histoire du français: Le français contemporain|website=www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca|access-date=2016-05-06}}</ref>
[[File:County of nice.svg|thumbnail|A map of the [[County of Nice]] showing the area of the [[Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861)|Italian kingdom of Sardinia]] annexed in 1860 to France (light brown). The area in red had already become part of France before 1860.]]

After the [[Treaty of Turin (1860)|Treaty of Turin]] was signed in 1860 between the [[Victor Emmanuel II of Italy|Victor Emmanuel II]] and [[Napoleon III]] as a consequence of the [[Plombières Agreement]], the [[County of Nice]] was ceded to France as a territorial reward for French assistance in the [[Second Italian War of Independence]] against [[Austrian Empire|Austria]], which saw [[Lombardy]] united with [[Piedmont-Sardinia]]. The Italian language was the official language of the County of Nice, used by the Church, at the town hall, taught in schools, used in theaters and at the Opera, was immediately abolished and replaced by French.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Large |first=Didier |date=1996 |title=La situation linguistique dans le comté de Nice avant le rattachement à la France |journal=Recherches régionales Côte d'Azur et contrées limitrophes}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Paul Gubbins and Mike Holt |title=Beyond Boundaries: Language and Identity in Contemporary Europe |year=2002 |pages=91–100 |language=En}}</ref> The French government implemented a policy of Francization of society, language and culture of the County of Nice.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Paul Gubbins and Mine Holt |title=Beyond Boundaries: Language and Identity in Contemporary Europe |year=2002 |pages=91–100}}</ref> The toponyms of the communes of the ancient County have been francized, with the obligation to use French in Nice,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aiig.altervista.org/Nizzardo/IL%20NIZZARDO%20NEI%20SUOI%20ASPETTI%20GEOGRAFICI.pdf|title=Il Nizzardo|access-date=17 May 2021|language=it}}</ref> as well as certain surnames (for example the Italian surname "Bianchi" was francized into "Leblanc", and the Italian surname "Del Ponte" was francized into "Dupont").<ref name="limesonline">{{cite web|url=https://www.limesonline.com/unitalia-sconfinata/2845|title=Un'Italia sconfinata|date=20 February 2009 |access-date=17 May 2021|language=it}}</ref>

By 1900, French had become the mother tongue of the majority of adults in France. [[Jules Ferry]] introduced free, compulsory education during the [[French Third Republic]], and openly tried to strengthen the centralised state by instilling a French national identity in the population.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Watson|first1=Cameron|title=Modern Basque History: Eighteenth Century to the Present|publisher=University of Nevada, Center for Basque Studies|year=2003|page=210|isbn=1-877802-16-6}}</ref> French was presented as the language of modernity, as opposed to regional languages such as [[Breton language|Breton]] or [[Basque language|Basque]], labelled as barbaric or tribal. Pupils caught speaking these languages were punished by making them display tokens of shame.{{Sfnp|Watson|2003|p=211}} In Occitan-speaking areas that school policy was called the ''[[vergonha]]''. <!-- Bad translation/idiom "display tokens of shame"? "Wear shameful/shaming badges"? -->

Historically, no official language was recognized by the French Constitution. In 1994, French was declared constitutionally to be the language of the French Republic. In 1998, France became a signatory of the [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages|European Charter on Minority Languages]]; however, it has yet{{when|date=September 2021}} to ratify it, with general agreement among the political class that supportive measures are neither popular enough to attract wide support nor banal enough to be uncontroversial, with concerns specifically about courts forcing the state to act if the rights enshrined in the charter are recognised.

Initiatives to encourage the use of minority languages are limited by the refusal of the French Government to recognize them, on the basis of the French Constitution, which states that "The language of the Republic of France is French". This view was upheld in 2021, when Deputy [[Paul Molac]] unexpectedly won a majority vote in the French [[National Assembly (France)|National Assembly]] to allow for immersive education in minority languages in state-run schools. The Assembly's decision was immediately contested by the French [[Constitutional Council (France)|Constitutional Council]], which struck out the parliament's vote.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-05-21|title=Le Conseil constitutionnel censure l'essentiel de la loi Molac sur les langues régionales|url=https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/le-conseil-constitutionnel-censure-l-essentiel-de-la-loi-molac-sur-les-langues-regionales_2151263.html|access-date=2021-06-17|website=LExpress.fr|language=fr}}</ref> The council also deemed unconstitutional the use of [[diacritical mark]]s not used in French, such as the tilde in "ñ".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Langues régionales : le Conseil constitutionnel rabote la loi Molac|url=https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/bretagne/langues-regionales-le-conseil-constitutionnel-rabote-la-loi-molac-2100172.html|access-date=2021-06-20|website=France 3 Bretagne|date=21 May 2021 |language=fr-FR}}</ref>