"Francophonie" opposes monolinguism in the EU 

On 15 January, the Executive committee of the "Francophonie" (Assemblée parlementaire de la francophonie) released a Strasbourg Declaration warning over the decreasing use of French in the EU and the need to preserve linguistic diversity.

The Assembly requires that French remains a working language in the EU and considers that financial considerations should not lead to the use of a single language (i.e English), as this would endanger linguistic diversity in Europe. It requested the Convention, headed by the French man Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, to come up with a proposal concerning the linguistic regime of the enlarged EU.

The Executive committee of the "Francophonie" also called on France not to ratify the London protocol on the Convention on the grant of European patents. This protocol would allow to file a patent in either English, French or German in the contracting states (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland/Liechtenstein, the United Kingdom). The Francophonie fears that, if this protocol enters into force, patents would then be almost systematically filed in English. To enter into force, the protocol must be ratified by eight contracting states including France, Germany and the United-Kingdom.