That Was The Week That Was 07-11 February 2022
The next round of the language wars
The Six Nations rugby is with us again, exposing the world to what those in the know call ‘Rugger Buggers’. Never a pleasant sight. And, if you chose to think it through, it is actually the three nations, given that four of the ‘nations’ are actually, err Britain. Still, it keeps the beer sales up, although what the good burghers of Rome think of being invaded by, for example, young men dressed as crusaders is sadly unreported.
Without any doubt the game so far was between France and Ireland (which uniquely in the case of rugby is a united Ireland team – to think, you will be able to tell your grandchildren that once, there was not a united Ireland) played over the weekend in Paris. But it was as nothing in comparison to the games being played in Brussels between the Irish and the French.
We are currently in the French presidency of the European Union. Bienvenue. Nothing much – frankly anything – happened in January, but we are not going to flog the French stereotypes about that. Who does not like a lie in? In any event, since February we have had the Aviation Summit, which begat the Toulouse Declaration, and a series of meetings of the various committees and working groups of the Council.
Once upon a time there was a convention that if the meeting did not have translators, the proceedings were to be in English or French, but the French delegate had to speak in English and the British delegate in French, to ensure no-one had a home tongue advantage. The Irish would exploit this by noting that their native language was Gaelic, and thus English was their second language. As Europe expanded, this rule went by the wayside and increasingly, English became the lingua franca. Not even the Romanian delegations spoke in French.
With Brexit, the French thought they would finally be able to get their own back. They moved to expunge English from the official European languages, on the grounds that Ireland and later joining Malta had listed their primary language as Gaelic and Maltese respectively. The next step in their cunning plan was run all meetings during their presidency and ask that all documents be submitted in French. Suas mise! retorted the Irish. On Tuesday of this week, the week that was, they submitted a paper on the signature of an air service agreement between the EU and Bangladesh, in Gaelic.
What is bon pour l’oie is bon pour les Irish.