Corsican MEP François Alfonsi was successful, one month ago, in receiving support from the majority of the European Parliament to his proposal of an increased engagement of the European institutions with the defense of the minoritised languages of the continent. But his victory was shadowed by the fact that it also received 26 votes against, 50% of which were French MEPs. Those MEPs included the three who belong to the National Front (FN), with Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine at the forefront.

This FN's position is now again relevant since opinion polls say for the first time that the anti-migration party could win the next 2014 European election in France. The rise of the FN would be paralleled in other countries of Europe by the growth of other similar parties.

Animosity against minoritised languages by the FN is a well-known fact since the times in which Jean-Marie Le Pen (by the way, a politician of Breton origin whose surname means "head" in that language) was leading the party, now in the hands of his daughter Marine. One of the most recent stances on this issue comes from FN Vicepresident Florian Philippot: "After Minister [Geneviève] Fioraso wants to impose Angloamerican in French universities, now the Minister for National Education Vincent Peillon favours 'strengthening the teaching of regional languages' in school. It would have been preferable that the Minister would have announced a 'stregthening of the teaching of the French language' in school, given that 20% of children reach the collège", i.e. the secondary school, "without a proper command of our language". Ministerial provisions, Phillippot says, "are pure madness, when French is under big threat". "Why this obsession against the French language from ministers who should be defending it?", asks the FN politician, who concludes: "We are asking for respect to  Article 2 of our Constitution: 'The French language is the language of the Republic'".

As the European election approaches, FN propaganda is not limited to attacks against a promise by the French Government to ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, but also to insist that everything must be done in order to avoid that France sees itself dilluted into the European Union linguistic fusion. Everything must be done, Le Pen's party says, in order to support the French identity. According the FN, being permissive with the regional languages dossier would imply opening the door to the recognition of migrants' languages. It would be, as Marine Le Pen spokesman Bertrand Dutheil last year said, falling into the trap of the "reactionary project to turn societies into a mosaic".

These opinions about the meaning of "diversity" especially hit those parties, organizations and people who defend an alternative to French nationalism, as is the case in Brittany and Corsica, where local parties have seats in the territorial assemblies and, even there, the National Front is rising. To this, it must be added that the FN is finding supports even among people who are drawn from a migrant background.

By now, Marine Le Pen is trying to show that his party is not proposing a reactionary programme. In fact, the FN is now introducing itself as a product of political modernity and as being heir to the French Revolution. Thus, Le Pen says, people must be drawn from their home communities and melt them into a single nation represented by the French Republic. This is how France will be able to continue a sovereign country, the FN argues. According to this view, the French language is a critical asset for this to happen, a sine qua non condition for the future success of France.