Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has announced that the road to ratify the Charter is a constitutional bill that the Socialists introduced last week in the French National Assembly. The PS proposes to add a new article into the Constitution which reads: "The Republic can ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ​​adopted in Strasbourg on 5th November 1992, completed by its interpretative declaration". The wording is exactly the same that had been proposed one month ago by a group of MPs led by pro-autonomy Breton MP Paul Molac.

The constitutional amendment would give concreteness to another article of the French Constitution (75.1) which states that "regional languages ​​belong to the heritage of France". French, however, would continue to be the only official language.

Why is now the French Government willing ratify the Charter?

ECRML ratification was one of the commitments that President François Hollande adopted during the presidential campaign. Last week's move is thus in line  with that. Legal experts had warned last year that the Constitution should be amended before ratifying the Charter. Shortly after, French Assembly President Claude Bertolone admitted that the Socialists could not reach a majority of three fifths of MPs to amend the Constitution and that, therefore, ratification was no longer an option.

However, Ayrault has now announced a new U-turn. Why? The only French MEP who does not belong to a French-wide party (François Alfonsi, Party of the Corsican Nation) believes that the French Government has recently undergone a lot of pressure in order to take some steps forward. On the one hand, Alfonsi recalls, the European Parliament adopted in September -by a large majority vote- a motion in favor of endangered languages. The motion called for all EU member states to ratify the Charter. On the other, the bonnets rouges demonstrations in Brittany and an official request by the Assembly of Corsica for co-official status for Corsican have also played a role. Basques have also carried out several protests this year in favor of a co-official status for the Basque language.

Other sources have told Nationalia that the effect of the Breton mobilization is indeed a major factor to explain the situation, and they add that the electoral context could be favorable for the ECRML debate. Those sources recall that local elections are due to be held next March in France, and the French Government needs things to "calm down". The Government's commitment in favour of the Charter ratification could be an asset before the Breton, Corsican and Basque public opinions. Moreover, opposition parties could then be held responsible for any ECRML ratification failure.

It is the first time that France announces it will assume the Charter?

Not at all. Firstly, it must be recalled that since the 1980s several French leaders -almost always on the left side of the political spectrum- have been promising some sort of recognition for minorised languages​​. Promises, however, have been broken in a number of times. Constitutional recognition for minorised languages had to wait until 2008, and a law explicitly recognizing bilingual education was only passed in 2013.

In 1997, Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin commited to include France in the list of ECRML supporters. After being elected as France's Prime Minister, Jospin signed the Charter in 1999. But signing and ratifying it are however different things, and the document is only valid in a given country once it has been ratified. Jospin tried to become the French President in 2002, a move that could perhaps have led to the Charter ratification. But he suffered a devastating defeat in the election first round to Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen. The ratification was stored, and neither Chirac nor his successor Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to address the issue.

Ratifying the Charter has been rejected up until today by the French right -and by part of the left, too. Those sectors believe that accepting the ECRML would break the republican principle of equality and indivisibility of the French nation. The Socialists, however, have a more nuanced position: they understand that minority languages can be granted some public space ​​as long as it remains clear that the only official language is French.

What advantages does the Charter give to minorised languages?

The ECRML is a Council of Europe legal instrument that was adopted in 1992. Since then, it has been ratified by 25 European states. Each state can choose the level of protection granted to each of the languages ​​spoken in its territory. The Charter contains a range of measures which include the introduction of minorised languages ​​intp the education system and the courts, their use in the administration, and fostering the media and cultural events in those languages​​.

Similarly, the Charter also provides that states must encourage contacts between linguistic groups speaking the same language but divided by state borders. If France finally ratifies the Charter -and assume this point-, that principle would be applicable to languages ​​such as Basque, Catalan and Occitan, since Spain has also ratified it.