Rwanda: French in search of a new lease of life

The observation is bitter but not without hope. The French language has lost its influence in Rwanda to the benefit of English, privileged in recent decades. The authorities have made it the third official language. “National radio no longer reads news in French. On national television, French news is broadcast after 10 p.m., when people are already asleep, ”said the former presenter of the French-language newspaper on national television, Etienne Gatanazi, who witnessed the decline of French. Today, “most radios and televisions no longer have programs in French because they consider the programs in English more attractive,” he laments at the microphone of AFP.

Same story in Kigali where the stand-up evenings in French of the comedians of the “Comedy Knights Rwanda” are no longer successful either. “We realized that during the English-speaking humorous evenings, there were people, but for the French-speaking evenings, attendance was low. In 2017, we made the commercial decision to suspend the French evening, ”explains its creator, actor, author and director Hervé Kimenyi. “We always perform in French but for specific audiences, or on order,” he explains.

How many francophones in Rwanda?

Language of the former Belgian colonizer who arrived in Rwanda at the end of the 19th century, with its schools and churches, French has greatly lost its influence since the genocide of 1994. The controversies over the role of France in the genocide of the Tutsi, who killed at least 800,000 people, were a source of serious tension between the two countries, whose diplomatic relations were severed between November 2006 and November 2009.

According to a 2018 study, French was spoken by 724,000 of the 12.5 million Rwandans, or 6% of the population, according to the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF). It is the most widely spoken foreign language in the country. This low percentage is explained by the fact that Kinyarwanda is spoken by almost all Rwandans who therefore do not need a foreign language to understand themselves unlike other African countries where several local languages ​​coexist.

How can the decline of the French language in the country be explained?

At the time of post-genocide reconstruction, French found itself in competition with English, the language spoken by most of the Tutsi refugees who returned from Uganda and South Africa – English-speaking countries – who constituted the new administration. President Paul Kagame, himself educated in Uganda, introduced in the 2003 Constitution English as the third official language, along with Kinyarwanda and French.

Then in 2008, French was suddenly replaced by English as the language of compulsory instruction at school, then the country joined the Commonwealth in 2009, becoming the first country with a French-speaking tradition to join the organization placed under the authority of the Queen of England Elizabeth II, without ever having been a British colony or having a constitutional link with the crown.

The Rwandan authorities have always refuted any political or ideological will to relegate French to the background, instead invoking a pragmatism and a desire to train young people in a language considered essential for the economic development of the country, located at the crossroads of French-speaking Africa. and English speaking. Above all, Rwanda has never questioned its membership in the organization of La Francophonie. “Maybe 90% of trade, investments are with countries in the region that speak English. So why wouldn’t we embrace this aspect realistically, without giving up what we already have? “Argued President Kagame.

Is the warming of diplomatic relations favoring the return of the French language?

With the recent warming of relations between Paris and Kigali, accelerated by the publication of two reports, one French and one Rwandan, concluding that there is heavy French responsibility – but not complicity – in the 1994 genocide, the French hopes to find a new breath. And the country can count on strong support. The international organization of La Francophonie has been headed since 2018 by the former Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo. His organization has initiated a project to deploy around 100 teachers to teach French and train in the language of Molière.

When he comes to the Rwandan capital on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate a new “Francophone cultural center”, seven years after the closure of the French Institute in Rwanda. “It will aim to promote not only French culture, but also all the resources of the Francophonie, especially artists from the region”, according to the French presidency. Rwanda has many neighboring countries where French is the official language, one thinks in particular of the Democratic Republic of Congo, of which 42.5 million, or 51% of the 84 million inhabitants speak French, and 19 million students and students are educated in French, according to the International Organization of la Francophonie.