Jacques Chirac once stormed out of an EU summit because a French business leader was speaking it, Nicolas Sarkozy lamented his lack of it and François Hollande makes small talk in it but is conscious of his accent, reports The Guardian.
The global spread of the English language has long been a sore point in Paris politics. Now a new battleground has appeared in the linguistic war as the Socialist government wants to allow English to be used as a teaching language in French universities, sparking a rift in academia.
Until now, teaching and lecturing in a foreign language at French universities has been banned by law, except in the case of language courses or visiting professors.
The 1994 law was intended to preserve the French language. But in reality, a number of French universities, including some of the most prestigious, have disregarded the legislation and have been steadily using English in lectures and seminars, for example in Masters courses on subjects such as the sciences, technology, economics or business where a kind of "global English" has become the norm.
The government has now decided the ban should be relaxed.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.