Netizens doubt Macron's hope to make French the world's first language

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Are we going to live on a French-speaking planet?

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to make his mother tongue a global lingua franca during a recent speech in West Africa. However English and Chinese native speakers are wondering whether his plan for a French linguistic empire is nothing more than building castles in the air.

Speaking to students at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso late last month, the president attempted to strengthen ties with the former French colony, revealing his ambition to make his native language "the first language of Africa" and "perhaps of the world."

"To isolate oneself with one language, and to reject the French language, to follow the trend of speaking English on the African continent is not looking towards the future," Macron said.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaking to students at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso in late November.

The president undertook a three-day trip around Africa to tackle the continent's migrant crisis and bolster the fight against Islamist militancy, among other pressing issues.

Macron claimed that his aim of making French the main future language in the region has nothing to do with a "relic of a colonial power".

The speech grabbed the attention of English language media, including The Times, The Daily Express, The Guardian and The Australian.

The Independent published two reports, one of which was titled “No matter what Macron says, French is not going to become the next global language.”

Screenshot of the headline of an article published by The Independent.

Netizens were also not convinced of Macron's hopes.

Many doubted the practicality of this plan and questioned whether the day would ever come, especially as English has already taken over the world.

Screenshot of a comment under The Independent report.

Macron's speech has also been trending in China for the past couple of days, with some on China's Twitter-like Weibo showing zero confidence in the president's words.

"English is the most widely used language and Chinese is the most spoken language, these are the facts we learned in primary school,” a user who goes by the name @123qiaohaha said.

“When French becomes as simple as English, President Macron's aspirations will come true," another user @lanbuzhuxiaojiejie commented.

The most spoken languages worldwide (speakers and native speaker in millions). /Photo via Statista

French is currently the fifth most spoken language with an estimated 370 million people using it. It follows Mandarin, English, Spanish and Hindi, according to online statistics portal Statista.

There are approximately 982 million native Mandarin speakers, and 375 million whose mother language is English. However, English’s domination is unrivaled, with 1.5 billion total speakers worldwide.

One study in 2014 by Singapore-based Natixis bank claimed that French could overtake English and Mandarin by 2050, due to Africa's soaring population, which will spike from 800 million in 2010 to 4.5 billion, among whom 60 percent will speak French.