According to a study conducted by polling agency One Poll in July and August 2025 for the language learning app Babbel, 33% of the French population grew up with parents or grandparents whose first language was not French. But among this sample, a quarter of French men and women with immigrant backgrounds did not have access to this infection.
Naïma, 28, was born in Paris to an Algerian mother who spoke Berber and Arabic. “These languages are prohibited at homehe admitted. My grandparents preferred to speak broken French, rather than their native language. My mother also only spoke French, trying her best to get rid of her foreign accent.”
A linguistic breakthrough in the 20th century
Naïma’s case is not an isolated case. According to a One Poll study for Babbel, 39% of members of the two postwar immigrant generations chose not to pass on their native language, because they thought it would facilitate their children’s integration into French society. “Abandoning one’s language in favor of French appeared in the eyes of the first generation of immigrants as a rational choice to protect their children from discrimination, in a society that highly stigmatized foreign languages”explains Sophie Vignoles, linguist and head of educational content at Babbel.
In the article entitled “Language Dynamics in France Throughout the 20th Centurye Century”, published in 2002 in the journal Population et Sociétés, sociologists and linguists François Héran, Alexandra Filhon and Christine Deprez noted that if the proportion of adults who inherited a foreign language from their parents increased with increasing migration after the Second World War, then the native language was gradually abandoned and only French was spoken at home.
Non-transmission is seen as a vector of integration
In 1999, in the “Family History Study”, the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) and the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) showed that foreign languages were most affected by non-transmission during the second half of the 20s.e centuries in French are Polish, Creole, Italian, Spanish, African languages, Berber, Arabic, Portuguese and even German.
“For my family, the priority was that we do well in school and that meant eliminating Arabic and Berber from our lives.”
Over the years, immigration has continued to fuel debates about identity, integration and national cohesion. Integration policies often encourage linguistic assimilation, thereby influencing perceptions of self and language of origin among immigrant populations. “For many newcomers, dropping the native language is seen as a key factor in social integration and a way of maximizing children’s chances of academic success”explained Sophie Vignoles.
The reality experienced by Naïma: “For my family, the priority was that we do well in school and that meant eliminating Arabic and Berber from our lives.” However, we now know that speaking several languages fluently and/or having several native languages is a powerful driver for academic success, but also an advantage on a cognitive and social level.
Sensing her parents’ urgency to integrate, Anna, 40, experienced obstacles with Romania. “My father, who ran a hotel, told his customers that he was Greek so as not to reveal his true nationality. One day, when I was little, I spoke Romanian and he corrected me by saying: ‘Here, we are in France, so we speak French.’ Since then, I seemed to have internalized my parents’ shame about their origins and I could no longer speak Romanian, even with my family back home.search for people whose real name is Anne-Françoise. “My parents thought it looked very French and looking French was their biggest wish.”
The relationship with language is closely related to historical and societal context
One’s relationship to one’s language, whether it is pride, shame or rejection, depends largely on the perception of the host country. At the age of 4, when she moved to a village in the south of France, Anja, 38, immediately internalized the negative views projected in her native language, German.
“With my sister, we were the only strangersAnja said. I felt a strong need to blend in, yet we were constantly reduced to the status of strangers and enemies. We were called “chleuhs”, “boches”, “Nazis”. So I completely reject that language. I only answer in French when my family speaks German to me and I do everything to lose my accent. Now, I no longer speak my native language at all.” Stereotypes regarding German in France provide a good example of the influence of historical and political context on language perception.
Former French colonies are still viewed through a postcolonial prism which tends to make their language, cultural richness and history invisible. “I always felt that my father prevented himself from speaking his mother tongue, fon (or fon-gbe) and the gun (or gun-gbe)because they are not appreciated at alldepicts Thibault, 38, whose father is from Benin. He was also very afraid of failing this integration command. At that time, it would be impossible to have multiple identities. The idea of intermarriage is simply unthinkable. At school, they thought I was adopted because my mother was white. It was a fairly violent period, which didn’t leave much room for diversity of cultures, histories and backgrounds.”
The injustice lies in the fact that while certain foreign languages are being depreciated and eliminated, other languages, on the contrary, are highly valued. “If my father were English, everyone would be very proud that we learned and spoke English among ourselves. This would be seen as a driver of academic and social success.imagine Thibault.
Language as a vector of memory and cultural continuity
For Sophie Vignoles, language is not a simple means of communication. They contain a number of intangible components that connect us to ourselves and others. “Language is a vector of emotion, history, tradition. It is a way of seeing the world, but it is also an invisible thread that connects generations, a door to the culture of one country and another people. When we lose contact with the language of our parents or ancestors, whole parts of our family and social history disappear.”
Observations were also made by Ando, 28 years old, born in Armenia and arrived in France at the age of 6 years. “At home, we always speak Armenian among ourselves. We come from a society that has experienced genocide. The country currently has only 3 million inhabitants. So, it is our duty to keep our culture and memories alive. Without language, they will be lost.
“There is a real generational change. Rather than erasing, today we are more accepting of linguistic pluralism and claiming our distinct identities.”
Today, Naïma deeply regrets not being able to speak her native Algerian language. “With my siblings, we felt like we were losing something that should have been an integral part of our identitysighed the young Parisian. When we went to Algeria, we felt hampered, because we couldn’t speak fluently with our family. For me who just had a baby, it was heartbreaking to know that I had nothing to pass on to him at this level.
Same story for Anna: “It was a double blow. In France, I was not allowed to speak Romanian, but in Romania, I was criticized for forgetting my mother tongue. For years, this situation has distanced me from my family and prevented me from feeling at home there.”
A more open society than yesterday
But society continues to develop and after that, people from abroad may allow themselves to pass on their mother tongue to their children more than yesterday.
“There is a real generational changenotes Sophie Vignoles. Rather than erasing, today we are embracing our linguistic pluralism and claiming our distinct identities.” Additionally, many individuals of the new generation are determined to reconnect with what was not passed down to them: “This is a form of reparation that is part of a true collective movement that contributes to the modernization of our culture.”
Ando and his family embody this paradigm shift well: “For centuries, because of the desire to be like other French people, Armenians have not always allowed themselves to speak the language with their children. We arrived in a different and more pleasant context, so we have to make this transmission effort.”
In recent years, Anna has taken Romanian lessons from a private teacher. “Sometimes I have a childlike level, sometimes I speak in a very sustained wayangered the forty year old. It’s very uneven, but that doesn’t matter. I discovered certain reflexes and I even started dreaming in Romanian again.” As time went by, Thibault also took back his cultural heritage from West Africa. “I go to Benin regularly and try to learn, little by littletestified on his side, this thirty year old man. It was tough, but I hung in there. Whatever people say, these languages are part of me.”
