The threat had virtually no effect. Yet the sum has done little to stem the onslaught of English. Vietnam, a former French colony, used to conduct higher education and all official business in French, and more recently favored Russian. Today, Vietnam uses primarily Vietnamese, with English by far the foreign language of choice. But French is not so popular among young people.
Foreign companies use English.
Students know English is necessary for getting a good job. Yet 91 percent of the students choose English. As late as four years ago, two private French-language watchdog groups sued the Georgia Institute of Technology's campus in Metz, France. The groups complained that the campus's Internet site violated a French law banning advertising in English. The courts threw out the complaint on a technicality.