Apologies to any francophiles or French speakers reading this (hi aunty Dinah) but I must say I find the ambitions described here quite laughable and a tad arrogant, albeit in a typically French way. French president Emmanuel Macron recently said that he thinks French might soon replace English as the Lingua Franca of the world, noting it’s rise in Africa. I detect a note of jealousy there: french people seem to envy the fact that English is spoken so widely; it is the language of science, diplomacy, business and increasingly of art. Of course, the writers of [i]Cahiers du Cinema[/i], which had a major influence on writing about film, wrote in French; but English is now increasingly taking hold as the primary language of film criticism, with American writers like Ebert, Keathley and Pomerance becoming quite central. As the article points out, they seem to think it’s a sign of a country’s importance internationally. Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t see french ever overtaking english on the world stage. Don’t get me wrong: french is a wonderful language which I should have taken more trouble to learn, but as it stands, with the world’s only current superpower speaking english, I can’t see it losing it’s dominance. In fact, with international communications over the web becoming faster and faster, I can only see english becoming ever more central. I don’t think french people will like that at all, and still think their language should be the dominant one, but they will have to swallow their grandiose pretentions and accept modern reality.