English is Winning in France
From t-shirts to music English is loudly dominating French culture.
It’s no wonder the French are debating a language exam for visa applicants: The audio and visual inundation of English is everywhere. Walking into French retail establishments we are hit by a wave of explicit American music. “A B C D E Fuck yoooou,” Gayle sings as we look for shoes in a kids’ shoe shop. The Coq Sportif up the street blasts American rap that makes me blush, and I am not a pearl clutcher.
Brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Timberland, The North Face, Calvin Klein, Levi’s, Carhartt, Gap and even Abercrombie and Fitch dominate the racks. When you manage to find French brands they usually have English phrases boldly splashed across their fronts. I was searching for a hoodie for my six-year-old and here are some of the offerings:
Unfortunately the “High” hoodie is for children, otherwise I would buy one for myself.
I recently shared a picture of my daughter’s middle school class photo and many American friends commented on the number of America-themed English-language shirts the kids were wearing. Walking down a street in our small town of Bayonne a visiting American friend announced “English is winning,” as we passed shirt after shirt after shirt in English.
I recently engaged in small talk with a man wearing a Milwaukee Bucks hat.
“Antetokounmpo! Let’s go Bucks!” I said.
“Je suis désolé, quoi?” the man asked.
“Votre chapeau. Les Bucks ? Milwaukee ?” I asked.
“Oh. I don’t know the team. I just like the hat,” he replied in English.
I see Harvard and Yale sweatshirts on teenage girls, American flag scarfs around French women’s necks, and very oddly translated jokes about binge drinking on men’s shirts. The number if items with “New York” and “California” written on them is staggering.
As Francophiles we are doing our part to fight back against all this bad English with bad French, like this outfit, thanks to American brand Clare V.:
Perhaps one of the most French-like things my husband has done since we moved to France is complain about the two (very competent!) musicians playing English cover songs for hours in front of our house.
“He try to make me go to ree-yah I say no, no, no,” they sang Amy Winehouse with great conviction.
“Do you really want to -urt me?” by Boy George was another.
My husband proceeded to perform his own mini-grève: He stopped working and taped a piece of paper in our window that yelled “Play French Music!” Alas, it didn’t work. Perhaps it’s because it was written in English and blended in with the rest of the writing all around us.