Talk:Organisation internationale de la Francophonie

message: Why does the map have Syria colored?  Syria does not have French as an official language (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Syria or https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2098.html).
I understand that Syria was a former French colony, but the map labels light blue as "official language".
I changed the map to the one from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_internationale_de_la_Francophonie until someone gets a better map.
To bad .. the map was awesome.
Kitplane01 (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Syria

message: Looking through the significant 'non members' of the Francaphonie, I am surprised to see the absence of the United Kingdom. French is the most popular foreign language in the UK and 23% of British residents claim they can speak French. This I believe is more significant than some of the official observers such as Slovakia who can simply say that 2% can speak French. I believe this is a case to put the UK forward as a significant non member. This is also not to mention the huge number of French expats living in major British cities and studying in French 'lycées' on British Land. This presents the French culture in many British neighbourhoods and it's still evident that people taking French in the UK is on the rise.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.252.31 (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, add it then! Aaker (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Francophonie, like the British Council, is a post-colonial entity exercising a neo-colonial agenda of promoting language and national interests. Hence they're essentially rival international players. Britain would not join Francophonie, just as France would not join the British Council. A greater proportion of French people speak English than English people speak French.Gymnophoria (talk) 21:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Significant non members (United Kingdom)

message: Francophonie claims also the Val d'Aoste region of Italy.
Good original article, the comment above on Francophonie as the vehicle of an alternative culture to Anglo-Saxon/consumer society/etc. is bang on (I would be interested to know if anyone has ever read anything comparing or about the influence of Francophonie on the EU). But should this not be pointed out in the article, as it is the raison d'être of the enterprise?
Jeremynicholas 06:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italy, Francophonie as cultural vehicle 

message: Off-topic, out of curiosity: I've just seen the list of member states, associate members and additional states of La Francophonie. The membership of many of these countries is obvious, like France, Belgium and Switzerland. But could anyone explain to me what the link of Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Egypt, Albania, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Armenia, Austria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia with the French language is? Is Armenia's membership possibly related to the fact that France has a large Armenian majority? Aecis Appleknocker Flophouse 16:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've started on this and added Expandsection so hopefully someone will complete it (if that's overkill, feel free to detag it). However, it doesn't look like Mediawiki likes nested dictionary lists, so I've added a wikify to hopefully get some guru attention (if there's a better way to ask for that, feel free to implement it). My reasons were handraulically generated from parsing country articles, so this should also be checked over by an expert. (Or at least someone who speaks French! :O Vagary 22:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about member states (ExpandSection, Wikify) 

message: The article states: "Unlike some similar organisations such as the Commonwealth of Nations, La Francophonie does not have in its stated aims the promotion of democracy and human rights. This has led to some criticism as several of the member states have a poor record when it comes to the protection of human rights and the practice of democracy; a proposed measure to impose sanctions on such countries was debated at least twice but was not approved."
: That is not true. 
:1) The stated missions of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, include "Paix, démocratie et droits de l'Homme" (Peace, Democracy, and Rights of Man). Read the Novembre 3rd 2000 Déclaration de Bamako on this subject. There is actually a section on the initiatives, financing and agenda of the organisation in regards to one of its stated mission of "Paix, démocratie et droits de l'Homme" here: http://www.francophonie.org/actions/democratie/index.cfm 
:2) Since 1) is not true, "it" (the alledged absense of aims to promote democracy and human rights) cannot have lead to the criticism. The criticism actually came from within the organisation itself. The media relayed information on internal criticism around 1997 when Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard, former Ambassador of Canada to France, promoted the idea of a Charter in order for the organisation to sanction member countries that are known to violate Human Rights. The idea was rejected by France. Read this Le Droit article by journalist Paul Gaboury dated November 18 1997 : http://www.vigile.net/francophonie/gabouryvoix.html -- Mathieugp 03:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparison with the Commonwealth of Nations 

message: I have no particular interest in la Francophonie but rather a Ghanaian interest.  While reading my daily dose of African news this morning (30 Sep 2006) I learned that Ghana is now a full member of the organization.  http://news.africast.com/africastv/article.php?newsID=60007
Your article states that there are 53 member nations.  I linked over to the la Francophonie website from your article and, if I am reading the French correctly, that site states that there are 55 member nations.  Also, as of this morning Ghana is still listed as an associate member on that site.
I am writing this only to give you guys a heads up.  CaliOjosAzules 13:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Membership 

message: I bevieve that it's best to use the name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)" and not just "Republic of Macedonia" on the list of the EU members, since the official name that this country entered the organisation is "Ex-République yougoslave de Macédoine" http://www.francophonie.org/oif/membres.cfm xvvx 14:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be listed under the name FYROM.  Also, why is FYROM a member of the Francophonie?  What's the rationale?  --myselfalso 03:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Republic of Macedonia" or "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)"? 

message: AFAIK french is co-official in Mauritius http://www.geonames.de/coumu.html
Ybgursey 20:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mauritius 

message: The Francophonie website does not list Serbia as its member, but rather as an observer. . An anon IP listed it here two weeks ago under the observer heading. However, it was "elevated" to a member status by a registered contributor a couple of days later. The remark about Serbia's "historical traditional friendly relations" with France also looks like POV. I will wait for the time being before making changes to see if anyone has anything to share on the subject . RedZebra 14:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both questions seem to have been taken care of by an anon IP. RedZebra 08:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serbia - a member or only an observer? 

message: Would it help the table by listing the countries by membership status rather than alphabetically?  Xlegiofalco 01:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit member table 

message: The member states table says that French is a "minority language" in Romania and provides a link to Romania#Demographics, which does not contain any such information, though. I have never heard about any French minority in Romania, neither has a Romanian friend of mine. Unless someone can provide plausible evidence I suggest to remove this information. --Thorsten1 11:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll be surprised if the claim of the existence of the French-speaking minority in Romania eventually proves to be true. However I invite the person who inserted it to provide a valid reference. In the meantime this interesting assertion will have to go. --RedZebra 12:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: French is understood and spoken by more than a quarter of the population.  This is probably the reason why the reference was made to it being a minority language. - Parmaestro 05:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the answer. I still think it would be incorrect to call it a minority language. By the same token, English would become a minority language in dozens of countries. --RedZebra 21:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, 24% doesn't seem t be enough,  they are probably even more numerous than that. Aaker 11:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  French minority in Romania? 

message: someone more expert than me should revert the vandalism... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.59.145.201 (talk) 13:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism! 

message: Could someone explain why Albania and other Eastern European states have joined the organisation? Aaker 21:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a sizeable number of French-speakers in some of these countries (Romania, Bulgaria etc). French has also beein the preferred language of the elite in many of these countries. Besides one shouldn't forget political advantages of the joining an organisation which is quite reputable and whose members and particularly leading countries would like to offer some alternative approaches to managing the process of globalisation.--RedZebra 21:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Albania 

message: Wallonie and the Communauté Française are NOT alternative names for the same thing - one is a geographical region, one a rather more ethereal body which includes French speakers throughout Belgium (for most intents and purposes covering Wallonia minus the Ostkantonen plus the separate Brussels-Capital region). The flag shown in the table is that of Wallonia; I don't think that the Community has a flag although the official site (http://www.cfwb.be) does use the cockerel emblem in red on white. 82.71.38.203 02:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True; I've corrected that, thanks.  I've kept the Walloon flag of red cockerel on yellow field; fr:Communauté française de Belgique#Drapeau says that the Walloon flag has been adopted by the Community.  The red on white emblem is for the Administration. –EdC 10:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wallonia 

message: Is the Francophonie the formal successor to the French Community? If so, neither article mentions this. Wl219 07:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[French Community]]

message: The name "International Organization of La Francophonie" is used in English in official Canadian documents. In Canada, "Minister responsible for La Francophonie" has been an official title. Josée Verner is currently the "Minister for la Francophonie and Official Languages".  (She holds two portfolios.) The only thing that seems to vary is whether to capitalize "la". One sees it capitalized in "The Agency has been La Francophonie's direct operating agency for higher education and research since 1989 [...], and uncapitalized in The first Charter of la Francophonie was adopted in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1996 during the annual Ministerial Conference of la Francophonie." . In the very same text, you can even see "the Francophonie" in "The first Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, political spokesperson and official representative of the Francophonie internationally, was elected at the Hanoi Summit." Nonetheless, the capitalized form "La Francophonie" seems to predominate. The acronym for the organization is OIF, even in English. Joeldl 09:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In this case, the argument can be made that this is a Canada-related topic in the same way that EU institutions are considered UK/Ireland-related. (See WP:ENGVAR for this.) With the complication that the Francophonie could also be Cameroon-related! In any case, we have an attested English name used by a member state that speaks English.Joeldl (talk) 08:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Should a  tag be slapped on this article then? 76.66.197.30 (talk) 07:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the title should be in english, since this is english wikipedia. --Rochelimit (talk) 17:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  English name 

message: Before you start complaining about the status of French in some member states, you should read these critères d'adhésion. Aaker 11:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critères d'adhésion 

message: What do the observers actually do? This article just lists them without any explanation. --LukeSurl t c 12:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Observers? 

message: Wouldn't it just be grand if this article had a history section? Zazaban (talk) 01:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: In the first sentence, it's said that "La Francophonie is an international organisation of French-speaking countries ". This isn't really the case, nobody could call countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Cyprus "French-speaking" by any stretch of imagination. In none of these countries is French even a minority language, it's not a community language and it is not even the first foreign language in most of these countries, coming after English. JdeJ (talk) 21:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: First sentence

message: It is indeed an organization of "countries and governments", in the sense that some of its members are sovereign States, while others are non-sovereign States. Quebec and New Brunswick both have the status of "participating governments". -- Mathieugp (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  countries and governments 

message: The page shows a map - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Francophonie_organisation_2008.png - in which Thailand is shown in the same color as members. However, the page lists Thailand as an observer. Can someone please clarify and correct it? --RohanDhruva (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thailand is an observer 

message: The links with the French wikipedia seem a little confused. The link from here goes to Francophonie on the fr.wiki. However, the equivalent should surely be Organisation internationale de la francophonie. Francophone should be the target for the French Francophonie article as that discusses French speaking in general. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)Join WikiProject Athletics! 12:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If it was done by an interwiki bot, it's likely to be quite messed up. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 07:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki links 

message: Are people aware that the title of this page is actually Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (olf) not oif? I suggest that this article be moved to Organisation internationale de la Francophonie in any case, but this "olf" thing is pretty odd. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)Join WikiProject Athletics! 16:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a typo, in any case, it's odd to have the  "(xxx)" anyways... just strip the parenthetical text, and have a better title. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 07:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odd title 

message: Does anyone think there should be a WP:WikiProject Francophonie? It would be like WP:WikiProject Commonwealth that handles the British Commonwealth. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 07:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably not. I doubt it would have enough members or interest to be effective. Oreo Priest talk 11:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

text: It is to be presumed that most if not all people who would be interested in participating to such a project can read/write French. If that is true, then bilingual French-English users can join the French :fr:Projet:Français and declare their intention to work mostly on improving the French-related articles of the English Wikipedia. The project has already produced a decent :fr:Portail:Francophonie. -- Mathieugp (talk) 17:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

text: One could make a task force of the French language, but it would have to be the daughter of a parent project. Then maybe the task force will grow and become a project at a later date. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That would only cover language issues, not territory, or history. It could not be a TF for WPFRANCE either, it'd have to be a joint task force between the WPCANADA/Quebec/NB, WPFRANCE, WPBELGIUM, WPSWITZERLAND at the very least. 70.29.209.91 (talk) 09:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: WikiProject Francophonie?

message: Bosnia-Herzegovina is not listed as an observer or member on the official Francophonie website... can someone please remove their light blue status on the map? --BignBad (talk) 23:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Instead of changing the map, the Francophonie accepted BiH as an observing member of the francophonoe in 2010 :) -- 92.241.140.194 (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

message: Madagascar is a suspended member according to this article . Aaker (talk) 16:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Madagascar 

message: I'm sure Ode to Joy isn't the official OIF anthem, but I'm not sure what is. Beethoven's Ode to Joy is the anthem of the European Union.  Google doesn't really help me, beyond saying the OIF anthem was written by "Yane Linster from Luxembourg" (http://www.panapress.com/5th-Francophonie-Games-open-in-Niamey--12-576832-77-lang4-index.html) in 2005.  Nor does OIF official website.
The French version of this page does not include any anthem.  I think it should be removed from this one.
John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Tue 16:49, wikitime=  08:49, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anthem 

message: I don't know if I'm bringing up a topic that's been discussed before, but the title of this page slightly concerns me. I've read a lot of the arguments on Talk:Ivory Coast, and it seems to me that if we accept that rationale for the Ivory Coast article, we should move this page to its associated English name. I'm honestly trying to merge these perspectives here, and not trying to start some sort of move war, so I thought I should mention this on the talk page first. Regards, MediaKill13 (talk) 13:29, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: It was officially announced yesterday that Ireland has applied for observer status in la Francophonie, and that France supports the application. Culloty82 (talk) 14:42, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ireland 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Louisiana joined the Francophonie as an observer state alongside Ireland(https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/10/12/louisiana-joins-la-francophonie/), so the map should be edited to indicate that.
--Qualcomm250 (talk) 10:20, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding Louisiana to the map 

message: This article should be moved to Francophonie per the WP:UCN policy. The contents of that page, as is, does not reflect any real-world usage in the English language, and appears to be WP:OR. Wikipedia is here to document usage, not prescribe it, and the word "Francophonie" has only one use in English - to refer to this organisation. 194.193.205.87 (talk) 13:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to Francophonie 

message: Wouldn't a chapter bringing the criticism against the OIF make the article of better quality? Herewith a kick-off.
The Francophonie is viewed as pushing / imposing its language to other peoples, hence contributing to the perception of the francophonie being an instrument of an imperialist power, being insensitive to the support every people should receive to use its own language in education and state affairs. This principle is supported by the 
# 2019 UN International Year for Indigenous People and Indigenous Languages https://en.iyil2019.org/; 
# 2015-25 UN international #AfricanDescentDecade;
# 2011–2020 Third (!) International Decade for the Eradication of #Colonialism #ColonialismDecade;
# 21 February International Mother Language Day.
The push for the Francophonie to have an "International Day for the French language (use at the United Nations and other international meeting places) - "20 March - French Language Day at the UN" , and a similar push at the European Institutions, where the Francophonie was used by some of its members who got irritated that "international English" was becoming too much of an self-evidency to be used in international gatherings in the EU institutions. This attitude made bigger language groups to respond and demand - and obtained - their own UN International Days:
# 21 February - International Mother Language Day
# 20 March - French Language Day at the UN
# 20 April - Chinese Language Day at the UN
# 23 April - English Language Day at the UN
# 23 April - Spanish Language Day at the UN
# 6 June - Russian Language Day at the UN
# 30 September - International Translation Day
# 18 December - Arabic Language Day at the UN
The general feeling was that the international institutions already offered a lot of room for European languages - english, french, spanish - that were quite similar, even Russian could be seen as a European language, but that Chinese or Arabic or again Russian were much less used or never or that simultaneous translation was often not foreseen because of practical or budgetary limitations.  The french/Europeans should feel lucky the whole world started to learn English and did not demand the Europeans - french to learn e.g. Chinese, Arabic or Russian, stressing the effort it takes for those language groups not even using European alphabets to learn a European language, making the francophonie's demands - without placing them in a larger context and not hesitating to impose their own french language onto far away countries and peoples in other continents - feel like petty.
This opinion also resulted in the creation of the UN International Years:
# 2008 - International Year of Languages;
# 2019 - International Year of Indigenous Languages (A/RES/71/178);
and the international Decades mentioned earlier.
This blind eye by the francophonie to the respect for indigenous languages and the feeling by indigenous people that french has been enforced upon them, eradicating their own languages and culture, makes that minds stay closed to all the good that the francophonie aspires to bring as per its motto "égalité, complémentarité, solidarité ("equality, complementarity, and solidarity"),[1] a deliberate allusion to France's motto liberté, égalité, fraternité."
In Brussels - completely surrounded by flemish communes and completely in Flanders, but where the francophones deployed and deploy a strategy to attempt to gradually replace the original flemish language by french, the Flemish community is fighting the replacement of traditional flemish names into francophone names and the used of flemish in the administration and bi-tri- lingualism.  The Flemish allow the use of English as Brussels is the capital of Europe; the french speaking community considers that e.g. Scandinavians, Romanians, Italians, Spanish, Polish should first learn one of the two official languages of the Brussels Capital Region - french or flemish - and then they are welcome to come work and live in Brussels.  Shop keepers should thus not serve customers in English, idem in the administration.  Which is contrary to the EU agreement to put in efforts so that every EU citizen would be tri-lingual: their own mother tongue of course, English and a 3rd language of choice.
PS
I don't have time to add more or provide the links to sources but will come back later. Sincerely.
SvenAERTS (talk) 12:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Francophonie Criticism 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Organisation internationale de la Francophonie(OlF) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 29#Organisation internationale de la Francophonie(OlF) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Steel1943 (talk) 23:41, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie(OlF)" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :French world and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 30#French world until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Steel1943 (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "French world" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]