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125-708: The Comet Line ( French : Réseau Comète ; 1941–1944) was a Resistance organization in occupied Belgium and France in the Second World War . The Comet Line helped Allied soldiers and airmen shot down over occupied Belgium evade capture by Germans and return to Great Britain. The Comet Line began in Brussels where the airmen were fed, clothed, given false identity papers, and hidden in attics, cellars, and people's homes. A network of volunteers then escorted them south through occupied France into neutral Spain and home via British-controlled Gibraltar . The motto of

250-676: A High Commission in the capital, although larger Commonwealth nations generally also have consulates and consulates-general in major cities. For example, Toronto in Canada , Sydney in Australia and Auckland , New Zealand, are of greater economic importance than their respective national capitals, hence the need for consulates there. When Hong Kong was under British administration , diplomatic missions of Commonwealth countries, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand , India, Malaysia , and Singapore were known as commissions . After

375-430: A high commission ). The term "consulate" may refer not only to the office of a consul, but also to the building occupied by the consul and the consul's staff. The consulate may share premises with the embassy itself. A consul of the highest rank is termed a consul-general and is appointed to a consulate-general. There are typically one or more deputy consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents working under

500-552: A Belgian female secret agent named Frederique Dupuich. After they crossed the border, de Jongh and Deppé left their charges to fend for themselves and returned to Belgium. The Belgians were arrested by Spanish police and three Belgian soldiers among them were turned over to the Germans in France. The others were jailed briefly and fined. From this experience, de Jongh and Deppé realized that they must accompany their charges secretly all

625-744: A French official to teachers in the department of Finistère , in western Brittany, included the following: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language". The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to replace the Basque language with French..." Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process

750-431: A comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". In the article, Weber ranked French as, after English, the second-most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations,

875-433: A consular official must do. For example, for some countries, consular officials may be responsible for the issue of visas; other countries may limit "consular services" to providing assistance to compatriots, legalization of documents, etc. Nonetheless, consulates proper will be headed by consuls of various ranks, even if such officials have little or no connection with the more limited sense of consular service. Activities of

1000-432: A consulate include protecting the interests of their citizens temporarily or permanently resident in the host country, issuing passports ; issuing visas to foreigners and public diplomacy . However, the principal role of a consulate lies traditionally in promoting trade—assisting companies to invest and to import and export goods and services both inwardly to their home country and outward to their host country. Although it

1125-411: A different hierarchy from the diplomats in the strict sense. However, it is common for individuals to be transferred from one hierarchy to the other, and for consular officials to serve in a capital carrying out strictly consular duties within the consular section of a diplomatic post; e.g., within an embassy. Between Commonwealth countries, both diplomatic and consular activities may be undertaken by

1250-503: A farmer, Emile Cochin, gave him a place to stay for the night and contacted an English-speaking woman, Madeleine de Brunel de Serbonnes. She took Smith to her home where he stayed until December 14. A dentist named Mr. Bolusset provided civilian clothing that fit Smith. Smith was transported to Paris by train by Catherine Janot , a law student and daughter of de Serbonnes. A medical doctor, Jean de Larebeyrette, preceded them on an earlier train to Paris to ensure no German checkpoints were along

1375-555: A foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and

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1500-716: A heavy blow to the Comet Line. The Maréchal family hid airmen in their home in Brussels and the house became a meeting place for members of the line. Two men persuaded a Comet Line helper that they were American airmen and were taken to the Maréchal home. The men were Germans and the Abwehr raided the home, arrested the Maréchals , including 18-year old Elsie, and many other helpers of the Comet Line. The information gained by

1625-465: A host country beyond a guest country's embassy in the capital. Staff of consulates may be career diplomats, but they have limited forms of diplomatic immunity unless they are also accredited as such. Immunities and privileges for consuls and accredited staff of consulates ( consular immunity ) are generally limited to actions undertaken in their official capacity and, with respect to the consulate itself, to those required for official duties. In practice,

1750-1032: A nation's capital, and in other cities throughout that country, especially centres of economic activity and cities where large populations of citizens from the consul's home country reside ( expatriates ). In the United States, for example, embassies are located in Washington D.C. and most countries have a consulate-general in New York City (the site of the headquarters of the United Nations ), and some have consulates-general in several major cities, such as Atlanta , Boston , Chicago , Dallas , Houston , Los Angeles , Miami , or San Francisco . Many countries have multiple consular offices in nations such as Germany, Russia, Canada, Brazil, and Australia. Consulates are subordinate posts of their home country's diplomatic mission (typically an embassy , in

1875-455: A new Comet Line. Roger took on the job of escorting airmen from Paris to southwestern France. Dumon worked with him and in Paris. The de Greef family continued to facilitate border crossings. MI9 sent in an operative named Jean de Blommaert ("Thomas Rutland") to run the center in Paris. An American woman, Virginia d'Albert-Lake and her French husband, Philippe, worked with the Comet Line until she

2000-652: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on

2125-494: A relic of the old nominal case system of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in

2250-587: A second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and

2375-526: A second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only

2500-941: A second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as

2625-547: A variant of Canadian French , is spoken in parts of New England . Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana ), but is nearly extinct today. French also survived in isolated pockets along the Gulf Coast of what was previously French Lower Louisiana , such as Mon Louis Island , Alabama and DeLisle, Mississippi (the latter only being discovered by linguists in

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2750-437: Is 95%, and in the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna , it is 84%. In French Polynesia and to a lesser extent Wallis and Futuna, where oral and written knowledge of the French language has become almost universal (95% and 84% respectively), French increasingly tends to displace the native Polynesian languages as the language most spoken at home. In French Polynesia, the percentage of the population who reported that French

2875-779: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French

3000-472: Is a widespread second language among the Lebanese people , and is taught in many schools along with Arabic and English. French is used on Lebanese pound banknotes, on road signs, on Lebanese license plates , and on official buildings (alongside Arabic). Today, French and English are secondary languages of Lebanon , with about 40% of the population being Francophone and 40% Anglophone. The use of English

3125-489: Is also a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), and Médecins du Monde (used alongside English). Given

3250-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including

3375-462: Is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share

3500-652: Is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also an official language of all of the territories ( Northwest Territories , Nunavut , and Yukon ). Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, making up just under 4% of the population. Furthermore, while French is not an official language in Ontario , the French Language Services Act ensures that provincial services are available in

3625-503: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English

3750-404: Is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects . The period is marked by a heavy superstrate influence from

3875-465: Is not admitted publicly, consulates, like embassies, may also gather intelligence information from the assigned country. A consular district is a sub-national region designated by a consular post to exercise consular functions in a host country. A consular district is serviced by a consul or "consul-general" and is headquartered at a consulate or "consulate-general." It is a common utility for spreading diplomatic representation and services to regions of

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4000-469: Is often considered to be a useful skill by business owners in the United Kingdom; a 2014 study found that 50% of British managers considered French to be a valuable asset for their business, thus ranking French as the most sought-after foreign language there, ahead of German (49%) and Spanish (44%). MIT economist Albert Saiz calculated a 2.3% premium for those who have French as a foreign language in

4125-828: Is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , the Caribbean Court of Justice , the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights , the International Court of Justice , the International Criminal Tribunal for

4250-512: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,

4375-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure

4500-483: Is the native language of about 23% of the Swiss population, and is spoken by 50% of the population. Along with Luxembourgish and German, French is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg , where it is generally the preferred language of business as well as of the different public administrations. It is also the official language of Monaco . At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in

4625-492: Is the second-most spoken language (after English) in the states of Maine and New Hampshire . In Louisiana , it is tied with Spanish for second-most spoken if Louisiana French and all creoles such as Haitian are included. French is the third most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in the states of Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Hampshire . Louisiana is home to many distinct French dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French . New England French , essentially

4750-424: Is the sole official language in the province of Quebec , where some 80% of the population speak it as a native language and 95% are capable of conducting a conversation in it. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal , which is the world's fourth-largest French-speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism

4875-764: The Aosta Valley region of Italy where it is the first language of approximately 50% of the population, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands . It is also spoken in Andorra and is the main language after Catalan in El Pas de la Casa . The language is taught as the primary second language in the German state of Saarland , with French being taught from pre-school and over 43% of citizens being able to speak French. The majority of

5000-462: The Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as

5125-865: The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Brussels celebrates the Comet Line and the Allied airmen shot-down in Belgium. A typical Comet Line route was from Brussels or Lille to Paris and then via Tours , Bordeaux , Bayonne , over the Pyrenees to San Sebastián in Spain. From there evaders travelled to Bilbao , Madrid and Gibraltar. There were three other main routes, used by other lines. The Pat Line route (after founder Albert Guérisse (code name: Pat O'Leary) ran from Paris to Toulouse via Limoges and then over

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5250-539: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, but written forms of

5375-485: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains

5500-559: The Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically,

5625-877: The International Olympic Committee , the Council of Europe , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, Portuguese and English), the Eurovision Song Contest , one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency , World Trade Organization and the least used of the three official languages in the North American Free Trade Agreement countries. It

5750-626: The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia , while Old French literature began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the Vie de Saint Alexis ), or wars and royal courts, notably including the Chanson de Roland , epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court , as well as a cycle focused on William of Orange . It

5875-1012: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , the World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin

6000-654: The transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997, they were renamed consulates-general , with the last commissioner becoming consul-general. However, the Australian commission had been renamed the consulate-general in 1986. Owing to Hong Kong's status as a special administrative region of China , some countries' consulates-general in Hong Kong report directly to their respective foreign ministries , rather than to their embassies in Beijing , such as those of Canada ,

6125-506: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;

6250-707: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed

6375-400: The Allies, the rescue of downed airmen by the Comet and other escape lines had a practical as well as a humanitarian objective. Training new and replacement air crews was expensive and time-consuming. Rescuing airmen downed in occupied Europe and returning them to duty was a priority. Andrée de Jongh (code named "Dédée"), a 24-year-old Belgian woman, was the first leader of the Comet Line. She

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6500-407: The British and the Belgian government in exile in Great Britain. She said that the Belgian and British attempts to control the Comet Line "were given by people who were not aware of the situation, and did not understand the spirit that drove the team, nor the...situation under which the work was being done". Langley of MI9 commented that the Comet Line's "intransigence and failure to make use of some of

6625-401: The British. MI9 (British Military Intelligence Section 9), under the control of the ex-infantry Major Norman Crockatt and Lieutenant James Langley , who had been repatriated after losing his left arm in the rearguard at Dunkirk in 1940, approved financial assistance for the Comet Line. Other than financial assistance, De Jongh was adamant in retaining the independence of the Comet Line from

6750-425: The Brussels center. Michelle Dumon ("Michou" or "Lily"), 22 years old and a sister of Nadine, was a bold and experienced helper. The new leaders of the Comet Line in mid-1943 did not survive for long. On December 24, 1943, d'Ursel ("Jacques Cartier") drowned in the river Bidasoa which was the border of France and Spain. Legrelle was arrested by the Gestapo in an apartment in Paris on January 17, 1944, and Northomb

6875-510: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French

7000-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,

7125-411: The Comet Line ( Reseau Comet ) to help Allied airmen escape and return to the United Kingdom. All three founders worked for the Société Financière de Transport et d'Entreprises Industrielles (SOFINA). In June 1941, Deppé travelled from Belgium to southwestern France, where he had once lived, to look for the means to smuggle Allied soldiers, shot-down airmen, and other people vulnerable to capture by

7250-457: The Comet Line was "Pugna Quin Percutias", which means "fight without arms", as the organization did not undertake armed or violent resistance to the German occupation. The Comet Line was the largest of several escape networks in occupied Europe. In three years, the Comet Line helped 776 people, mostly British and American airmen, escape to Spain or evade capture in Belgium and France. An estimated 3,000 civilians, mostly Belgians and French, assisted

7375-447: The Comet Line, in consultation with MI9, decided to stop removals and instead gather airmen into forest camps where they could await the arrival of the Allied armies. American Virginia d'Albert-Lake and her French husband Philippe assisted in gathering airmen in the Fréteval forest in Operation Marathon . The final escapees were mostly Comet Line members running from last-minute German purges. Elvire De Greef and her two children crossed

7500-399: The Comet Line. They are usually called "helpers". Seven hundred helpers were arrested by the Germans and 290 were executed or died in prison or concentration camps. The Comet Line maintained its operational independence, but received financial assistance from MI9 , a British intelligence agency dedicated to the rescue of Allied prisoners of war and service members from behind enemy lines. For

7625-408: The Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek. The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of

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7750-416: The Germanic Frankish language , which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of V2 word order , a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary ) including the impersonal singular pronoun on (a calque of Germanic man ), and the name of the language itself. Up until its later stages, Old French , alongside Old Occitan , maintained

7875-454: The Germans enabled them to blow the Comet Line in Belgium. A hundred people in Brussels were arrested, among them, on 1 December 1942; the treasurer Baron Jacques Donny, having been betrayed, was arrested at his home at night and later sentenced to death on 10 October 1943 and executed by shooting in Stuttgart on 24 February 1944. He was known by the early evaders as Father Christmas as he brought them parcels of new clothes to wear. The next blow

8000-431: The Germans out of Belgium. Deppé made contact with the de Greef family in Anglet , near the Spanish border and arranged for their help in getting people across the border. Elvire De Greef , known as Tante Go (Auntie Go), and members of her family became stalwarts of the Comet Line. In July 1941, De Jongh and Deppé, assisted by the de Greefs, attempted their first crossing of the Spanish border with 10 Belgian men and

8125-471: The Germans. Deppé was imprisoned for the remainder of the war. De Jongh arrived safely at the de Greef's house and crossed into Spain with a Basque smuggler as a guide. De Jongh and her three charges, including a British airman, arrived at the British Consulate in Bilbao . She persuaded the British government to pay the Comet Line's expenses for transporting Allied soldiers and airmen from Belgium to Spain but declined all other assistance and guidance offered by

8250-438: The Germans; Usandizanga died in a German concentration camp; Goikoetxea was shot and wounded by German soldiers; de Jongh and Riquet were imprisoned in German concentration camps; and Janot fled France. In November 1942 the escape lines became more dangerous when southern France was occupied by the Germans and the whole of France came under direct Nazi rule. Also in November, the Abwehr (German military intelligence) dealt

8375-528: The Paris center. Three leaders of the Comet Line in Belgium were arrested six days after his flight. Picking up the pieces, the Comet Line leader in Belgium then became Jean Greindl ("Nemo"), 36 years old, the director of a charity called the "Swedish Canteen". Nemo organized a system for collecting the ever-increasing number of airmen throughout Belgium and preparing them for escape. Escorts under Nemo's direction accompanied airmen from Brussels to Paris. Nemo's principal escort to Paris for airmen until her arrest in

8500-530: The Pyrenees via Esterri d'Aneu to Barcelona . Another Pat Line route ran from Paris to Dijon , Lyons , Avignon to Marseille , then Nîmes , Perpignan and Barcelona, from where they were transported to Gibraltar. A third route from Paris (the Shelburne Line ) ran to Rennes and then St Brieuc in Brittany , where airmen were clandestinely taken by boat to Dartmouth . French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )

8625-451: The Spanish police. The German police, both military and security, intensified efforts to shut down the escape organizations moving airmen as Allied bombing of Europe and Germany increased. The Comet Line had three nerve centers: Brussels, Paris and southwestern France. With the Germans closing in on the Comet Line in Belgium, De Jongh's father, Frederick ("Paul"), fled to Paris on April 30, 1942, to join his daughter. He took over management of

8750-404: The airmen were met, usually by Elvire de Greef or her teenage daughter, Janine . From there, the airmen, a Basque guide and their escort would journey over the Pyrenees to Spain, initially by bicycle and then on foot. In San Sebastián , Spain, a car from the British consulate would meet the airmen and drive them to Madrid and onward to Gibraltar . Donald Darling ("Sunday") met and interrogated

8875-406: The border included Alfred Edward Johnson ("B"), an English handyman living with the de Greefs. The Comet line used Basques, often smugglers accustomed to crossing the French–Spanish border surreptitiously, to guide airmen across the dangerous border which was guarded by French and Spanish police and German soldiers. The favorite guide was Florentino Goikoetxea who was a wanted man by the French and

9000-455: The border into Spain on June 6, 1944. The final operation of the Comet Line was on September 28, 1944, when De Greef, back in liberated France , accompanied four Allied airmen on a flight from Biarritz to England. Young people, especially young women, working for the Comet Line often dressed, behaved, and carried false identity cards that described them as students and stated their age as several years younger than they actually were. The theory

9125-548: The capital city of the host country). Diplomatic missions are established in international law under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations , while consulates-general and consulates are established in international law under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations . Formally, at least within the US system, the consular career (ranking in descending order: consul-general, consul, vice-consul, honorary consul) forms

9250-442: The consul-general. A country may appoint more than one consul-general to another nation. Consuls of various ranks may have specific legal authority for certain activities, such as notarizing documents. As such, diplomatic personnel with other responsibilities may receive consular letters patent (commissions). Aside from those outlined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations , there are few formal requirements outlining what

9375-475: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Consulate A consulate is the office of a consul . A type of diplomatic mission , it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth countries,

9500-493: The de Serbonnes apartment to meet Smith and verify his bona fides as an Allied airman. On December 16, de Jongh took Smith to a photographer to get photos to have identification papers forged for him. On December 20, Smith left Paris by train with de Jongh, Janine De Greef and two Belgians fleeing the Germans. Arriving in Bayonne, they ate at a restaurant known to the Comet Line. From there they continued (probably by bicycle) to

9625-519: The demographic prospects of the French-speaking nations of Africa, researcher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote in 2014 that French "could be the language of the future". However, some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to eradicate the use of French, and as of 2024 it was removed as an official language in Mali and Burkina Faso . Significant as a judicial language, French

9750-448: The economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Weber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). In a 2008 reassessment of his article, Weber concluded that his findings were still correct since "the situation among the top ten remains unchanged." Knowledge of French

9875-594: The elites primarily spoke French, while many servants who worked in French households spoke a French pidgin known as " Tây Bồi " (now extinct). After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. However, since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the first foreign language of choice by English in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it continues to be taught as

10000-427: The escape of one Canadian airman illustrates the complexity and the large number of people involved in the operation of the Comet Line. The Comet Line carried out 101 escapes during the war, most of them similar to the following, each of them using many helpers and guides. On December 9, 1942, Sergeant Sydney Smith was a crew member of a Vickers Wellington bomber shot down near Sergines , France. He evaded capture and

10125-535: The escapees when they arrived in Gibraltar and arranged for their transport to Britain, usually by airplane. While the airmen proceeded onward, de Jongh (or after her arrest, another escort) met in San Sebastián with British diplomat Michael Creswell , ("Monday"), who gave her money for the Comet Line's expenses and messages to take back to France. In spring 1944, with the Allied invasion of France looming,

10250-513: The extension and application of consular privileges and immunities can differ widely from country to country. Consulates are more numerous than other diplomatic missions, such as embassies . Ambassadors are posted only in a foreign nation's capital (but exceptionally outside the country, as in the case of a multiple mandate; e.g., a minor power may accredit a single ambassador with several neighbouring states of modest relative importance that are not considered important allies). Consuls are posted in

10375-516: The first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the Aosta Valley in 1536, while the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law in the Kingdom of France . During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations ( lingua franca ). It retained this role until approximately the middle of

10500-915: The former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body . It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union , and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights 's two working languages. In 1997, George Weber published, in Language Today ,

10625-829: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert , which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240. Known Gaulish loans are skewed toward certain semantic fields, such as plant life ( chêne , bille , etc.), animals ( mouton , cheval , etc.), nature ( boue , etc.), domestic activities (ex. berceau ), farming and rural units of measure ( arpent , lieue , borne , boisseau ), weapons, and products traded regionally rather than further afield. This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being

10750-535: The help we offered them...nearly drove me frantic". Until 1943, the Comet Line denied the offer of the British to supply it with radios and radio operators to facilitate vetting of shot-down Allied airmen and communication. The rationale was that resistance groups were often broken up by the Germans because a radio had been captured. De Jongh declined to communicate via radio, but rather used couriers to deliver and receive messages to and from British diplomats in Spain. It

10875-454: The language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English. As of the 2021 Canadian census , it was the native language of 7.7 million people (21% of the population) and the second language of 2.9 million (8% of the population). French

11000-479: The language, although it has now given way to Tamil and English. A former French mandate , Lebanon designates Arabic as the sole official language, while a special law regulates cases when French can be publicly used. Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used". The French language in Lebanon

11125-612: The language. The Act applies to areas of the province where there are significant Francophone communities, namely Eastern Ontario and Northern Ontario . Elsewhere, sizable French-speaking minorities are found in southern Manitoba, Nova Scotia , Prince Edward Island and the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the unique Newfoundland French dialect was historically spoken. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. The Ontarian city of Ottawa ,

11250-479: The last to hold onto Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc . Langue d'oïl grew into what

11375-922: The line was vulnerable to infiltration by German agents. Hundreds of members of the Comet Line were betrayed and arrested by the Geheime Feldpolizei and the Abwehr ; after weeks of interrogation and torture at places such as Fresnes Prison in Paris, they were executed or labelled Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog or NN) prisoners. NN prisoners were deported to German prisons and many later to concentration camps such as Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Men were sent to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp , Buchenwald concentration camp and Flossenbürg concentration camp . Prisoners sent to these camps included Andrée de Jongh; Elsie Maréchal ( Belgian Resistance ); Andrée Dumon, sister of Michelle Dumon; and Virginia d'Albert-Lake (American). The authors of

11500-420: The necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory , only French was taught and the use of any other ( patois ) language was punished. The goals of the public school system were made especially clear to the French-speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany . Instructions given by

11625-466: The official history of MI9 cite 2,373 British and Commonwealth servicemen and 2,700 Americans reaching Britain by escape lines, including Comet, during the Second World War. The Royal Air Forces Escaping Society estimated that 14,000 helpers worked with the many escape and evasion lines by 1945. The Comet Line inspired the 1970s BBC television series, Secret Army (1977–1979). A window in

11750-589: The official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco;

11875-457: The other airmen stayed at the house of Federico Armendariz. The airmen were picked up by a British diplomatic car and driven to Madrid, then continued on to Gibraltar where on January 21 they boarded a ship, arriving in Scotland on January 26. The rescue of Smith went smoothly without complications; many of those mentioned above who helped him would later be punished. Robert Ayle was executed by

12000-534: The other main foreign language in the Vietnamese educational system and is regarded as a cultural language. All three countries are full members of La Francophonie (OIF). French was the official language of French India , consisting of the geographically separate enclaves referred to as Puducherry . It continued to be an official language of the territory even after its cession to India in 1956 until 1965. A small number of older locals still retain knowledge of

12125-471: The preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the Court of Justice of the European Union , where it is the sole internal working language, or the Directorate-General for Agriculture . Since 2016, Brexit has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union. A leading world language , French

12250-534: The principal escort to Spain of airmen. In June 1943, the Comet Line was blown again. An infiltrator led the Germans to arrest major leaders of the Line in Paris and Brussels. Among those arrested were Dédèe's father, Frederic ("Paul"), who was arrested in Paris on June 7, 1943, and executed on March 28, 1944. From the ashes of Comet emerged three new leaders. A British agent, Jacques Legrell ("Jerome"), took charge in Paris and Antoine d'Ursel ("Jacques Cartier") reconstituted

12375-471: The rest largely speak French as a first language. As a French Creole language , Haitian Creole draws the large majority of its vocabulary from French, with influences from West African languages, as well as several European languages. It is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles . French is the sole official language of all the overseas territories of France in

12500-453: The route as Smith had no French identification papers. In Paris, Smith was housed in the de Serbonnes family apartment. On December 15, Catherine Janot asked a Canadian medical student named Bernard Courtenay-Mayers for help and he referred her to a Jesuit priest named Michel Riquet. Riquet told Janot that she would be visited by people who would help Smith escape to Spain. That evening Comet Line members Robert Ayle and Andrée de Jongh came by

12625-427: The summer of 1942 was Andrée Dumon ("Nadine"), 19 years old. "Nadine" survived the war in German concentration camps and described her experiences in her book Je Ne Vous Ai Pas Oubliés'.' When airmen arrived in Paris, the de Jonghs took over, providing them with safe houses and false documents and with an escort, usually Andrée de Jongh, who took them to southwestern France by train. In Bayonne or Saint-Jean-de-Luz

12750-466: The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. In a study published in March 2014 by Forbes , the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. In

12875-679: The two official languages—along with Dutch —of the Brussels-Capital Region , where it is spoken by the majority of the population (approx. 80%), often as their primary language. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh , and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy , of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions, and some cantons have bilingual status: for example, cities such as Biel/Bienne and cantons such as Valais , Fribourg and Bern . French

13000-508: The urban intellectual elite. The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable Romanization . Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French contributing loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by

13125-485: The use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. In Belgium, French is an official language at the federal level along with Dutch and German. At the regional level, French is the sole official language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons , which are German-speaking ) and one of

13250-515: The village of Urrugne , near the Spanish border and the country home of Francia Usandizanga, a Basque helper of the Comet Line. Usandizanga sent 17-year-old Janine de Greef away because of the danger from Germans. The next day, December 23, Smith, two other airmen, de Jongh, and a Basque guide, Florentino Goikoetxea , walked across the Pyrenees to San Sebastián , Spain. In San Sebastián, Smith and

13375-426: The war in German prisons and concentration camps but survived. On February 6, 1943, the Comet Line leader in Belgium, Jean Greindl ("Nemo"), was arrested in Brussels. While in a German military prison he was killed in an Allied air raid. With these losses, the Comet Line did not move anyone during February 1943 but in March normal operations began again with Jean-François Northomb ("Franco") replacing Andrée de Jongh as

13500-611: The way to the British Consulate in Bilbao and obtain British assistance. In August, Deppé and de Jongh escorted another group of people, de Jongh taking a longer, more rural, and safer route with three men, including Private James Cromar of the Gordon Highlanders, 51st (Highland) Division and Deppé taking a shorter, more dangerous route with six men. An informer betrayed Deppé and he and his group were arrested by

13625-536: The workplace. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese . In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, French is the second-most commonly taught foreign language in schools and universities, although well behind Spanish. In some areas of

13750-402: The world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to a 2023 estimate from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie , an estimated 167 million African people spread across 35 countries and territories can speak French as either a first or a second language . This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as

13875-417: Was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French

14000-560: Was arrested by Germans in June 1944. She was sent to a concentration camp but survived the war. A young Belgian man, Jacques Desoubrie , working for the Germans, infiltrated the Comet Line and was responsible for many of the arrests of its members. Michelle Dumon exposed him as a German agent in May 1944. Given the number of people involved in the Comet Line and its inability to vet effectively their volunteers and airmen to determine their bona fides,

14125-457: Was arrested in the same apartment on January 18. Both were tortured but survived the war. With the invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944, approaching, the need for a functioning Comet Line to rescue increasing numbers of fugitive airmen was crucial. In March 1944, the British diplomat Creswell met with Elvire de Greef (Tante Go), Michelle Dumon, and Marcel Roger ("Max") in Madrid to plan for the role of

14250-819: Was during the period of the Crusades in which French became so dominant in the Mediterranean Sea that became a lingua franca ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the Arabs during the Crusades who referred to them as Franj , numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as amiral (admiral), alcool (alcohol), coton (cotton) and sirop (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as algébre (algebra), alchimie (alchemy) and zéro (zero). Within Old French many dialects emerged but

14375-400: Was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul. As the language was learned by the common people, it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which is attested in graffiti. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan . The evolution of Latin in Gaul

14500-456: Was handled mostly by young women, many of them still in their teens, who escorted the servicemen hundreds of miles across enemy territory to Spain. My name is Andrée...but I would like you to call me by my code name, which is Dédée, which means little mother. From here on I will be your little mother, and you will be my little children. It will be my job to get my children to Spain and freedom. Andrée de Jongh to downed airmen. The story of

14625-789: Was imprisoned by the Germans in 1943, but survived the war. Subsequent leaders were also imprisoned, executed, or killed in the course of their work getting airmen to Spain. Young women, including teenagers, played important roles in the Comet Line. Sixty-five to 70 percent of Comet Line helpers were women. In 1941, an increasing number of British and allied aircraft were being shot down in Nazi-occupied Europe. Most downed airmen were killed or taken prisoner but some evaded capture and were sheltered by allied sympathizers and an emerging resistance movement to German rule. In Belgium, Andrée de Jongh age 24, Arnold Deppé age 32, and Baron Jacques Donny age 47 (Treasurer), created what became known as

14750-652: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates

14875-486: Was not until June 1943, after numerous arrests and a growing backlog of airmen to be removed, that the Comet Line gave its reluctant permission for an MI9 agent, Jacques Legrelle ("Jerome"), to work in Paris with them. Legrelle proved to be compatible with the overworked leadership of the Comet Line. The arrest of Arnold Deppé in August 1941 introduced a note of caution into the Comet Line. Andrée de Jongh decided that Belgium

15000-594: Was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language , which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . The population remained 90% indigenous in origin; the Romanizing class were the local native elite (not Roman settlers), whose children learned Latin in Roman schools. At the time of the collapse of

15125-404: Was that young women were less likely to be regarded with suspicion by the Germans. For example, one of Andrée de Jongh's false identity cards gave her the name "Denise Lacroix" and listed her birthdate as 7 July 1924, almost eight years younger than she was. Participation in the escape networks was arguably the most dangerous form of resistance work in occupied Europe...The most perilous job of all

15250-570: Was the language they use the most at home rose from 67% at the 2007 census to 74% at the 2017 census. In Wallis and Futuna, the percentage of the population who reported that French was the language they use the most at home rose from 10% at the 2008 census to 13% at the 2018 census. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie ,

15375-598: Was the most frequent escort; she escorted one group of three airmen in October 1941, another group of three in November, and two groups totaling 11 men in December 1941. That level of activity continued in 1942. MI9 officer Airey Neave described Andrée de Jongh as "one of our greatest agents". De Jongh made 24 round trips across the Pyrenees, escorting 118 airmen. Other persons who frequently escorted shot-down airmen across

15500-471: Was unsafe for her and moved to Paris. Initially, her father, Frederic (code name "Paul"), the headmaster of a primary school, took over the operation in Belgium. His job was to rescue shot-down airmen, install them in safe houses, provide them with false identity documents, European clothing, training in European mannerisms and an escort who would accompany them to Paris or all the way to Spain. Andrée de Jongh

15625-571: Was when Andrée de Jongh was arrested January 15, 1943, in Urrugne , the closest French town to the Spanish border. She was probably betrayed by a farm worker. Although she was interrogated many times by the Gestapo and German military intelligence, the Nazis didn't believe that this young, slight woman was anything more than a minor helper of airmen. Dédée, as she was universally called, spent the rest of

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