Représentations et statuts du français du XVIIIe au XXe siècle. Vers la généralisation du monolinguisme

The learned and cosmopolitan Europe of the 18th century, orphaned by the Latin of the clerics, gave French sufficient consideration to deem it capable of meeting the need for a universal language (Baggioni, 1997). This vision is based on epilinguistic judgements (Lodge, 2006), and representations of French's supposed elegance, rigour, precision, clarity and logic (Rivarol, 1966 [1784])). It also results from France's geopolitical position in Europe during this period. This conception, which is still present in contemporary common discourse, persists during the Revolution and will be reinforced in its universalist dimension. In addition to these representations of French transmitted by the 18th century, there was a political dimension born of the Revolutionaries' desire to make French the national language and the pivot of the nation. The extension of French is part of a vast political project in which French expresses and makes legible the national unity. In order to disseminate French throughout the country, a channel of transmission was needed, and this was the mission assigned to the school, which gave French a civilising mission that contributed to the stigmatisation of patois. Monolingualism spread to the entire population between the two world wars of the 20th century. This situation was reinforced by the process of mass schooling at the end of the 20th century, as indicated by the texts of the school curricula at the end of the 1990s, which combined the national language, the mother tongue and the language of schooling.