A former foreign minister in the UK has invoked anger after describing the French language as "useless."
British Member of Parliament Chris Bryant, who was Minister of State for Europe in the recently deposed Labour government, was addressing the decline in language learning when he made the controversial comments.
He told the House of Commons that business would suffer unless young people learned modern foreign languages, "and not just the useless languages like French."
When immediately challenged by opposition MPs on his remarks, he said he had shared his views with French people, and they "realize there are problems."
He added that while French was once vital, as the language of international diplomacy, its significance had waned. Arabic and Mandarin were among the most important languages now, he said.
Tory MPs at the time called the comments "insulting" to Britain's neighbours.
The director of Cilt Cymru, a language centre in Wales, where Bryant has his parliamentary constituency, also criticized the remarks. Ceri James hailed France as a "crucial economic partner," according to Wales's Western Mail, saying that "there is still inward investment from there and we do a lot of trade with France, so it's a bit ridiculous to describe it as a useless language."
The previous government made foreign languages non-compulsory after the age of 14, and fewer than half of students gain good grades at language GCSEs, the standard academic award for school-leavers in the UK.
Chris Bryant lost his job at the Foreign Office when the Labour Party was replaced by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government following elections in May this year.
21 June 2010
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