153-561: Radicalism (from French radical ) was a political movement representing the leftward flank of liberalism between the late 18th and early 20th century. Certain aspects of the movement were precursors to modern-day movements such as social liberalism , social democracy , civil libertarianism , and modern progressivism . This ideology is commonly referred to as "radicalism" but is sometimes referred to as radical liberalism , or classical radicalism , to distinguish it from radical politics . Its earliest beginnings are to be found during
306-572: 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 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
459-679: A coalition of centrist parties , spanning from the Socialists to the Christian-democrats. Ultimately the installation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, and the subsequent emergence of a two-party system based on the Socialist and Gaullist movements, destroyed the niche for an autonomous Radical party. The Radical Party split into various tendencies. Its leading personality, Mendès-France himself, left in 1961 in protest at
612-616: A republican form of government, universal male suffrage and, particularly, anti-clerical policies. French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ) 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 ,
765-418: A "radical reform" of the electoral system . This led to a general use of the term to identify all supporting the movement for parliamentary reform. Initially confined to the upper and middle classes, in the early 19th century "popular radicals" brought artisans and the "labouring classes" into widespread agitation in the face of harsh government repression. More respectable " philosophical radicals " followed
918-639: A Bill to reform the British East India Company , dismissed the government and appointed William Pitt the Younger as his Prime Minister. Pitt had previously called for Parliament to begin to reform itself, but he did not press for long for reforms the King did not like. Proposals Pitt made in April 1785 to redistribute seats from the " rotten boroughs " to London and the counties were defeated in
1071-744: 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
1224-544: A charter of rights as insufficient, potentially revocable by a whim of the monarch. Belgian Radicals closely followed the situation in France when, on 26 July to 1 August 1830, a conservative-liberal revolution broke out , overthrowing the autocratic monarchy for a liberal constitutional monarchy . Within a month a revolt had erupted in Brussels before spreading to the rest of the Belgian provinces. After Belgian independence,
1377-431: 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,
1530-633: A conservative-liberal rebranding, while Radikale Venstre maintained the radical tradition), took up a new orientation (as in France, where the Radical Party aligned with the centre-right, later causing the split of the Radical Party of the Left ) or dissolved (as in Greece, where the heirs of Venizelism joined several parties). After World War II , European radicals were largely extinguished as
1683-457: A de facto liberal-conservative party of the centre-right: renamed as the 'Valoisien' Radical Party , it advocated alliances with the rest of the liberal centre-right, participating first in the pro- Giscard d'Estaing Union for French Democracy (1972), then with the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (2002). Irish republicanism was influenced by American and French radicalism. Typical of these classical Radicals are 19th century such as
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#17327805314191836-644: A faction out of the party, taking with him twenty of the PRR's hundred deputies. They would soon merge with the right wing of the old Radical Socialist Republican Party to form the Republican Union . The walkouts left the remainder of the PRR even more inclined to concession with the religious right. Lerroux's rump PRR remained in government with the conservative-liberals and the CEDA for 1935. The party, already heavily weakened, made increasing policy concessions to
1989-555: 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
2142-546: A government excluding the Socialist Party and including the centre-left and centre-right republican parties. The government proved unable to command sufficient confidence in the Cortes, with the result that snap elections were held in which the PRR emerged the strongest single group in parliament with 102 deputies. Lerroux again formed a government, this time of the various conservative-liberal centre-right parties, but
2295-617: A historical affinity with radicalism and may therefore be called "liberal-radical". According to Encyclopædia Britannica , the first use of the term radical in a political sense is generally ascribed to the English parliamentarian Charles James Fox , a leader of the left wing of the Whig party who dissented from the party's conservative-liberalism and looked favourably upon the radical reforms being undertaken by French republicans , such as universal male suffrage. In 1797, Fox declared for
2448-500: A hundred had the vote. Writers like the radicals William Hone and Thomas Jonathan Wooler spread dissent with publications such as The Black Dwarf in defiance of a series of government acts to curb circulation of political literature. Radical riots in 1816 and 1817 were followed by the Peterloo massacre of 1819 publicised by Richard Carlile , who then continued to fight for press freedom from prison. The Six Acts of 1819 limited
2601-510: A journal for "philosophical radicals", setting out the utilitarian philosophy that right actions were to be measured in proportion to the greatest good they achieved for the greatest number. Westminster elected two radicals to Parliament during the 1820s. The Whigs gained power and despite defeats in the House of Commons and the House of Lords the Reform Act 1832 was put through with
2754-566: A large and socially diverse electorate including many artisans as well as the middle class and aristocracy and along with the county association of Yorkshire led by the Reverend Christopher Wyvill were at the forefront of reform activity. The writings of what became known as the " Radical Whigs " had an influence on the American Revolution . Major John Cartwright also supported the colonists, even as
2907-728: A major political force except in Denmark, France, Italy ( Radical Party ), and the Netherlands ( Democrats 66 ). Latin America still retains a distinct indigenous radical tradition, for instance in Argentina ( Radical Civic Union ) and Chile ( Radical Party ). The two Enlightenment philosophies of liberalism and radicalism both shared the goal of liberating humanity from the remnants of feudalism. However, liberals regarded it as sufficient to establish individual rights that would protect
3060-636: A minor role in Spanish parliamentary life , before it came to prominence as one of the leading political forces of the Spanish Republic . The Radical Republican Party was founded on 6 January 1908 in Santander by the Lerrouxist wing of the Republican Union , which splintered in disagreement from Nicolas Salmerón 's policy of alliance with Catalan regionalists . Initially, its structure
3213-803: A penny periodical he called Pig's Meat in a reference to Burke 's phrase "swinish multitude". Radical organisations sprang up, such as the London Corresponding Society of artisans formed in January 1792 under the leadership of the shoemaker Thomas Hardy to call for the vote. One such was the Scottish Friends of the People society which in October 1793 held a British convention in Edinburgh with delegates from some of
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#17327805314193366-652: 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
3519-691: A pro-Catholic Radicalism distinct from both the anticlerical Radicalism of France, and the Protestant Liberalism of the Dutch north. Following the political crisis of 1829, where the Crown Prince was named prime minister, a limited reform was introduced establishing constitutional rights, similar to the charter of rights of France's autocratic Restoration Monarchy; the Belgian Radicals, like their French counterparts, regarded such
3672-494: 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
3825-683: 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 the United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ,
3978-617: A time of tension between the American colonies and Great Britain , with the first Radicals, angry at the state of the House of Commons , drawing on the Leveller tradition and similarly demanding improved parliamentary representation. These earlier concepts of democratic and even egalitarian reform had emerged in the turmoil of the English Civil War and the brief establishment of the republican Commonwealth of England amongst
4131-547: 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
4284-457: 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 is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As
4437-437: 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
4590-472: 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
4743-489: 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
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4896-652: 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
5049-563: 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
5202-404: 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
5355-469: 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
5508-828: 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
5661-639: 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 ,
5814-553: 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
5967-483: 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
6120-492: 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
6273-424: 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
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6426-486: The American Revolutionary War began and in 1776 earned the title of the "Father of Reform" when he published his pamphlet Take Your Choice! advocating annual parliaments, the secret ballot and manhood suffrage . In 1780, a draft programme of reform was drawn up by Charles James Fox and Thomas Brand Hollis and put forward by a sub-committee of the electors of Westminster. This included calls for
6579-764: 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
6732-609: 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; 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
6885-609: 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
7038-517: 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 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
7191-418: The English Civil War with the Levellers and later the Radical Whigs . During the 19th century in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and Latin America, the term radical came to denote a progressive liberal ideology inspired by the French Revolution . Radicalism grew prominent during the 1830s in the United Kingdom with the Chartists and in Belgium with the Revolution of 1830 , then across Europe in
7344-485: 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
7497-441: 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,
7650-399: 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 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
7803-440: The General Boulanger crisis in the 1880s, the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s. The Radicals were swept to power first in a coalition government (1899) then in governments of their own from 1902. They finally managed to implement their long-standing programme of reforms, such as the separation of Church and State , or the introduction of secret ballotting . In order to ensure that their legacy would remain unreversed, they unified
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#17327805314197956-439: 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
8109-481: The London Working Men's Association (associated with Owenite Utopian socialism ), which called for six points: universal suffrage , equal-sized electoral districts, secret ballot , an end to property qualification for Parliament, pay for Members of Parliament and Annual Parliaments. Chartists also expressed economic grievances, but their mass demonstrations and petitions to parliament were unsuccessful. Despite initial disagreements, after their failure their cause
8262-475: The Netherlands , but also Argentina ( Radical Civic Union ), Chile and Paraguay . Victorian era Britain possessed both trends: In England the Radicals were simply the left wing of the Liberal coalition , though they often rebelled when the coalition's socially conservative Whigs resisted democratic reforms, whereas in Ireland Radicals lost faith in the ability of parliamentary gradualism to deliver egalitarian and democratic reform and, breaking away from
8415-420: 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
8568-690: The Parliament of Great Britain which itself was dominated by the English aristocracy and by patronage. Candidates for the House of Commons stood as Whigs or Tories , but once elected formed shifting coalitions of interests rather than splitting along party lines. At general elections , the vote was restricted to property owners in constituencies which were out of date and did not reflect the growing importance of manufacturing towns or shifts of population, so that in many rotten borough seats could be bought or were controlled by rich landowners while major cities remained unrepresented. Discontent with these inequities inspired those individuals who later became known as
8721-440: The Populist Party , composed of rural western and southern farmers who were proponents of policies such as railroad nationalization, free silver, expansion of voting rights and labor reform. In continental Europe and Latin America , as for instance in France, Italy , Spain , Chile and Argentina ( Radical Civic Union ), Radicalism developed as an ideology in the 19th century to indicate those who supported at least in theory
8874-429: The Radical Socialist Republican Party , since it was eager to maintain close links with the socialist movement. The three organisations were the main participants in the Provisional Government that formed after the abdication of Alfonso XIII in April 1931. The legislative elections of June 1931 returned the PRR as the second-largest parliamentary group, after the Socialists. The Radical Republicans generally supported
9027-409: The Reform League . When the Liberal government led by Lord Russell and William Ewart Gladstone introduced a modest bill for parliamentary reform, it was defeated by both Tories and reform Liberals, forcing the government to resign. The Tories under Lord Derby and Benjamin Disraeli took office and the new government decided to "dish the Whigs" and "take a leap in the dark" to take the credit for
9180-401: The Seditious Meetings Act 1795 which meant that a license was needed for any meeting in a public place consisting of fifty or more people. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars , the government took extensive stern measures against feared domestic unrest. The corresponding societies ended, but some radicals continued in secret, with Irish sympathisers in particular forming secret societies to overturn
9333-436: 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
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#17327805314199486-474: The elections of 1936 , it chose to ally for electoral lists with the parties of the religious and monarchist right, and many of its own local branches and voters abandoned it and migrated to other parties believed to better represent the spirit of Radical Republicanism: Portela Valladares's Party of the Democratic Centre on the centre-right, Martinez Barrios's centre-left Republican Union , or Manuel Azana's left-wing Republican Left . The PRR garnered just 1% of
9639-531: The interwar period , European radical parties organized the Radical Entente , their own political international . Before socialism emerged as a mainstream political ideology, radicalism represented the left-wing of liberalism and thus of the political spectrum. As social democracy came to dominate the centre-left in place of classical radicalism, they either re-positioned as conservative liberals or joined forces with social democrats. Thus, European radical parties split (as in Denmark, where Venstre undertook
9792-421: The utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals". By the middle of the century, parliamentary Radicals joined with others in the Parliament of the United Kingdom to form the Liberal Party , eventually achieving reform of the electoral system . The Radical movement had its beginnings at
9945-402: The " Radical Whigs ". William Beckford fostered early interest in reform in the London area. The " Middlesex radicals" were led by the politician John Wilkes , an opponent of war with the colonies who started his weekly publication The North Briton in 1764 and within two years had been charged with seditious libel and expelled from the House of Commons. The Society for the Defence of
10098-431: The 1832 Reform Act, the mainly aristocratic Whigs in the House of Commons were joined by a small number of parliamentary Radicals as well as an increased number of middle class Whigs. By 1839, they were informally being called "the Liberal party ". From 1836, working class Radicals unified around the Chartist cause of electoral reform expressed in the People's Charter drawn up by six members of Parliament and six from
10251-519: The 1840s–1850s during the Revolutions of 1848 . In contrast to the social conservatism of existing liberal politics, radicalism sought political support for a radical reform of the electoral system to widen suffrage . It was also associated with a variety of ideologies and policies, such as liberalism, left-wing politics , republicanism , modernism , secular humanism , antimilitarism , civic nationalism , abolition of titles, rationalism , secularism , redistribution of property , and freedom of
10404-455: 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;
10557-474: 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
10710-401: The Azaña government in December 1931, and the Radical-Republicans would act as the principle opposition group. That de facto placed the party on the centre-right, and it worked alongside the conservative-liberal republican parties of Melquiades Álvarez , Santiago Alba , Ortega y Gasset , and Alcalá Zamora . After the fall of the Azana government in September 1933, Lerroux was asked to form
10863-408: The Bill of Rights which he started in 1769 to support his re-election, developed the belief that every man had the right to vote and "natural reason" enabling him to properly judge political issues. Liberty consisted in frequent elections and for the first time middle-class radicals obtained the backing of the London "mob". Middlesex and Westminster were among the few parliamentary constituencies with
11016-557: The CEDA. It was fatally damaged by the revelations of two corruption scandals, known as the Nombela and Straperlo affairs, in the autumn of 1935. This led to the downfall of Lerroux as premier, though members of the PRR itself remained in the subsequent cabinets headed by two independents considered to be philosophically close to Radical-Republicanism, Joaquin Chapaprieta and Manuel Portela-Valladares . The party did not recover. In
11169-703: 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
11322-917: 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,
11475-792: The Constitution of 1831 established a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary regime, and provided a list of fundamental civil rights inspired by the French Declaration of the Right of Man. As in Britain, Radicals in Belgium continued to operate within the Liberal Party, campaigning throughout the 19th Century for the property-restricted suffrage to be extended. This was extended a first time in 1883, and universal male suffrage
11628-538: 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
11781-621: The English corresponding societies . They issued a manifesto demanding universal male suffrage with annual elections and expressing their support for the principles of the French Revolution. The numbers involved in these movements were small and most wanted reform rather than revolution, but for the first time working men were organising for political change. The government reacted harshly, imprisoning leading Scottish radicals, temporarily suspending habeas corpus in England and passing
11934-618: The French Radicals created an Entente Internationale des Partis Radicaux et des Partis Démocratiques similaires : it was joined by the centre-left Radical parties of Europe, and in the democracies where no equivalent existed—Britain and Belgium—the liberal party was to allowed attend instead. After the Second World War the Radical International was not reformed; instead, a centre-right Liberal International
12087-619: The French Revolution needed to be completed through a republican regime based on parliamentary democracy and universal suffrage therefore tended to call themselves "Radicals" – a term meaning 'Purists'. Under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the Radicals, on a platform of seeking a "social and democratic republic", sat together in parliament in a group named The Mountain . When Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte launched his military coup , Radicals across France rose up in insurrection to defend
12240-660: The French Revolution: civic nationalism . Dismayed by the inability of British parliamentarianism to introduce the root-and-branch democratic reforms desired, Irish Radicals channelled their movement into a republican form of nationalism that would provide equality as well as liberty. This was pursued through armed revolution and often with French assistance at various points over the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . Popular Radicals were quick to go further than Paine, with Newcastle schoolmaster Thomas Spence demanding land nationalisation to redistribute wealth in
12393-484: 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
12546-726: The House of Commons by 248 votes to 174. In the wake of the French Revolution of 1789 , Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man (1791) as a response to Edmund Burke 's counterrevolutionary essay Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), itself an attack on Richard Price 's sermon that kicked off the so-called "pamphlet war" known as the Revolution Controversy . Mary Wollstonecraft , another supporter of Price, soon followed with A Vindication of
12699-691: 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 a second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as
12852-606: 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 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
13005-512: The Netherlands ( Radical League and Free-thinking Democratic League ), Portugal ( Republican Party ), Romania ( National Liberal Party ), Russia ( Trudoviks ), Serbia ( People's Radical Party ), Spain ( Reformist Party , Radical Republican Party , Republican Action , Radical Socialist Republican Party and Republican Left ), Sweden ( Free-minded National Association , Liberal Party and Liberal People's Party ), Switzerland ( Free Democratic Party ), and Turkey ( Republican People's Party ). During
13158-451: 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 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
13311-700: The Radical Republicans went underground. As an end to the dictatorship came in sight, the party began to prepare for a return to constitutional normality. In 1926, it initiated the Republican Alliance , an umbrella organisation of various republicans hoping to push for a republican regime once the dictatorship ended. The Alliance excluded the Socialist Party ; in 1928, the Radical-Republicans' left wing split to found
13464-588: The Rights of Woman . They encouraged mass support for democratic reform along with rejection of the monarchy , aristocracy and all forms of privilege. Different strands of the movement developed, with middle class "reformers" aiming to widen the franchise to represent commercial and industrial interests and towns without parliamentary representation, while "Popular radicals" drawn from the middle class and from artisans agitated to assert wider rights including relieving distress. The theoretical basis for electoral reform
13617-520: The Socialists and entered legislative elections solely alongside other 'national' (non-regionalist) republicans though the electoral failure of 1916 put an end to this bloc. During the final decade of the Restoration, the Radical Republicans continued to possess a modest parliamentary representation, with Lerroux enjoying a certain prestige as the chief figure of Spanish republicanism. That came to end with Miguel Primo de Rivera 's coup in 1923, and
13770-545: The United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, Fenian Brotherhood in the 1880s, as well as Sinn Féin , and Fianna Fáil in the 1920s. Japan's radical-liberalism during the Empire of Japan was dissident because it resisted the government's political oppression of republicanism. Rikken Minseitō , who supported the Empire of Japan's system at the time, were classified as " conservative ". Therefore,
13923-623: The basis for what later became the Labour Party . The territories of modern Belgium had been merged into the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. Aside from various religious and socioeconomic tensions between the Dutch north and proto-Belgian south, over the 1820s a young generation of Belgians, heavily influenced by French Enlightenment ideas, had formulated criticisms of the Dutch monarchy as autocratic. The monarch enjoyed broad personal powers, his ministers were irresponsible before parliament;
14076-484: The case of England's Radical Whigs . Sometimes, the radical wing of the liberals were hardline or doctrinaire and in other cases more moderate and pragmatic. In other countries, radicalism had had enough electoral support on its own, or a favourable electoral system or coalition partners, to maintain distinct radical parties such as in Switzerland and Germany ( Freisinn ), Bulgaria , Denmark , Italy , Spain and
14229-615: The centre-right Orléanists (conservative-liberal and monarchist), the far-right Legitimists (anti-liberal monarchist), and the supporters of a republican military dictatorship, the Bonapartists . Following the Napoleonic Wars and until 1848 , it was technically illegal to advocate republicanism openly. Some republicans reconciled themselves to pursuing liberalism through the socially-conservative monarchy—the 'opportunists'. Those who remained intransigent in believing that
14382-460: The centre-right governments dominated by the conservative-liberal centre-right often gave a portfolio to a Radical, who would join cabinet in a personal capacity as the most left-leaning minister. The party itself was discredited after 1940, due to fact that many (though not all) of its parliamentarians had voted to establish the Vichy regime . Under the dictatorship several prominent Radicals, such as
14535-527: The citizen against the state. He warned against all forms of power – military, clerical, and economic. To oppose them he exalted the small farmer, the small shopkeeper, the small town, and the little man. He idealized country life and saw Paris as a dangerous font of power. The Radical–Socialist Party was the main governmental party of the Third Republic between 1901 and 1919, and dominated government again between 1924 and 1926, 1932–1933 and 1937–1940;
14688-510: The composition of the congress was such that he could not govern without either the republican left, few in number and fragmented, or the powerful bloc of the religious right, the CEDA. Over the next year various governments dominated by Radical-Republicans were toppled before the cabinet was finally extended to include the CEDA, a move that prompted the October Rising of 1934 . The increasing preference of Lerroux's wing to cooperate with
14841-549: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Radical Republican Party The Radical Republican Party ( Spanish : Partido Republicano Radical ), sometimes shortened to the Radical Party , was a Spanish Radical party in existence between 1908 and 1936. Beginning as a splinter from earlier Radical parties, it initially played
14994-925: The country's first major extra-parliamentary political party, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party , which became the leading party of government during the second half of the French Third Republic (until 1940). The success of French Radicals encouraged radicals elsewhere to organize themselves into formal parties in a range of other countries in the late 19th and early 20th century, with radicals holding significant political office in Bulgaria ( Radical Democratic Party ), Denmark ( Radikale Venstre ), Germany ( Progressive People's Party and German Democratic Party ), Greece ( New Party and Liberal Party ), Italy ( Republican Party , Radical Party , Social Democracy and Democratic Liberal Party ),
15147-434: The democratic republic. This experience would mark French Radicalism for the next century, prompting permanent vigilance against all those who – from Marshall Mac-Mahon to General De Gaulle – were suspected of seeking to overthrow the constitutional, parliamentary regime. After the return to parliamentary democracy in 1871, the Radicals emerged as a significant political force: led by Georges Clemenceau , they claimed that
15300-519: 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
15453-468: The early 1930s, the original Radical Republican Party had been pushed from the left to the centre and the centre-right, preferring to make alliances with anti-socialist and nationalist parties of the liberal and religious right. That process (see sinistrisme ) was broadly similar to the path taken in France by the antisocialist anticlericals known as the National Radicals . In its early years,
15606-448: 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
15759-594: 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
15912-516: 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
16065-915: 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 ,
16218-829: 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
16371-710: The government and encourage mutinies. In 1812, Major John Cartwright formed the first Hampden Club , named after the English Civil War Parliamentary leader John Hampden , aiming to bring together middle class moderates and lower class radicals. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Corn laws (in force between 1815 and 1846) and bad harvests fostered discontent. The publications of William Cobbett were influential and at political meetings speakers like Henry Hunt complained that only three men in
16524-522: The individual while radicals sought institutional, social/economic, and especially cultural/educational reform to allow every citizen to put those rights into practice. For this reason, radicalism went beyond the demand for liberty by seeking also equality, i.e. universality as in Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité . In some countries, radicalism represented a minor wing within the Liberal political family, as in
16677-454: 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
16830-479: 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
16983-612: 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 ,
17136-479: 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
17289-474: The legality of the parliamentary republic. The Radicals were not yet a political party as they sat together in parliament out of kinship, but they possessed minimal organisation outside of parliament. The first half of the Third Republic saw several events that caused them to fear a far-right takeover of parliament that might end democracy, as Louis-Napoléon had: Marshall Mac-Mahon 's self-coup in 1876,
17442-565: The local Radical committees into an elector party: the Radical-Socialist Party , the first major modern political party in French history. Intellectuals played a powerful role. A major spokesman of radicalism was Émile Chartier (1868–1951), who wrote under the pseudonym "Alain." He was a leading theorist of radicalism, and his influence extended through the Third and Fourth Republics. He stressed individualism, seeking to defend
17595-426: The main body of liberals, pursued a radical-democratic parliamentary republic through separatism and insurrection. This does not mean that all radical parties were formed by left-wing liberals. In French political literature, it is normal to make a clear separation between Radicalism as a distinct political force to the left of Liberalism but to the right of Socialism. Over time, as new left-wing parties formed to address
17748-420: 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
17901-464: The new social issues, the right wing of the Radicals would splinter off in disagreement with the main Radical family and became absorbed as the left wing of the Liberal family—rather than the other way around, as in Britain and Belgium. The distinction between Radicals and Liberals was made clear by the two mid-20th-century attempts to create an international for centrist democratic parties. In 1923–24,
18054-452: The original constitutional bill that provided for an integral, unitary state but with allowance for devolved regions. The party, however, greatly diverged from the republican parties to its left on certain constitutional questions, notably over unicameralism, the dissolution of the religions congregations and the legal provisions for the socialisation of property. These disagreements led the two PRR ministers, Lerroux and Martínez Barrios, to quit
18207-534: 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
18360-613: The party was heavily anchored in Lerroux's fiefdom of Barcelona, which rendered difficult the task of creating either a social-democratic political movement or a regionally-focussed Catalanist Radical movement. In 1910 , the Radical-Republicans first entered parliament, via an electoral bloc with socialists and other Radicals and republicans, known as the Conjunción Republicano-Socialista (Republican and Socialist coalition). From 1914 to 1916, it broke with
18513-472: The party's acceptance of De Gaulle's military coup and joined the small social-democratic Unified Socialist Party . A decade later, a second faction advocated maintaining an alliance with the Socialist-dominated coalition of the left; it broke away in 1972 to form the Radical Party of the Left , which maintains close ties to the Socialist Party. The remainder of the original Radical Party became
18666-493: The politics of French Radicalism with credibility derived from members' activism in the French resistance . In the 1950s, Pierre Mendès-France attempted to rebuild the Radical Party as an alternative to both the Christian-democratic MRP , while also leading the opposition to Gaullism which he feared to be another attempt at a right-wing coup. During this period the Radicals frequently governed as part of
18819-471: 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
18972-529: The press . In 19th-century France, radicalism was originally the extreme left of the day, in contrast to the social-conservative liberalism of Moderate Republicans and Orléanist monarchists and the anti-parliamentarianism of the Legitimists and Bonapartists . Until the end of the century, radicals were not organised as a united political party, but they had rather become a significant force in parliament. In 1901, they consolidated their efforts by forming
19125-690: The radical liberal movement during the Japanese Empire was not separated from socialism and anarchism unlike the West at that time. Kōtoku Shūsui was a representative Japanese radical liberal. After World War II, Japan's left-wing liberalism emerged as a "peace movement" and was largely led by the Japan Socialist Party . Since Japanese conservatism was influenced by Shintoism , Japan's radical liberalism and democratic socialism against it were influenced by Christianity . One of
19278-510: The reform. As a minority government, they had to accept radical amendments and Disraeli's Reform Act 1867 almost doubled the electorate, giving the vote even to working men. The Radicals, having been strenuous in their efforts on behalf of the working classes, earned a deeply loyal following—British trade unionists from 1874 until 1892, upon being elected to Parliament, never considered themselves to be anything other than Radicals and were labeled Lib-Lab candidates. Radical trade unionists formed
19431-425: The religious right over the fellow secular Radicals of the republican left caused concern among many members of the party. A series of concessions to the CEDA led several of the party's most prominent figures to abandon it in protest between October 1933 and October 1934. Most significantly, the schism of April 1934 had the party's second figure, the former interior minister and prime minister Diego Martínez Barrios, led
19584-407: 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
19737-427: The right to demonstrate or hold public meetings. In Scotland , agitation over three years culminated in an attempted general strike and abortive workers' uprising crushed by government troops in the " Radical War " of 1820. Magistrates powers were increased to crush demonstrations by manufacturers and action by radical Luddites . To counter the established Church of England doctrine that the aristocratic social order
19890-438: The separation of powers was minimal; freedom of press and association were limited; the principle of universal suffrage was undermined by the fact that the largely Catholic south, despite possessing two-thirds of the population, received as many seats to the Estates-General (parliament) as the smaller Protestant north; and the Dutch authorities were suspected of forcing Protestantism onto Catholics. These concerns combined to produce
20043-425: The six points later adopted in the People's Charter (see Chartists below). The American Revolutionary War ended in humiliating defeat of a policy which King George III had fervently advocated and in March 1782 the King was forced to appoint an administration led by his opponents which sought to curb Royal patronage. In November 1783, he took his opportunity and used his influence in the House of Lords to defeat
20196-431: The socially-conservative liberal republicanism of Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry had drifted away from the ideals of the French Revolution, and that the Radicals were the true heirs to 1791. In 1881, they put forward their programme of broad social reforms: from then on, the tactic of the main Radical Party was to have 'no enemies to the left' of the Republic, allying with any group that sought social reform while accepting
20349-432: The support of public outcry, mass meetings of "political unions" and riots in some cities. This now enfranchised the middle classes, but failed to meet radical demands. The Whigs introduced reforming measures owing much to the ideas of the philosophic radicals, abolishing slavery and in 1834 introducing Malthusian Poor Law reforms which were bitterly opposed by "popular radicals" and writers like Thomas Carlyle . Following
20502-414: 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
20655-496: The trends of the American radical movement was the Jacksonian democracy , which advocated political egalitarianism among white men. Radicalism was represented by the Radical Republicans , especially the Stalwarts, more commonly known as Radical Republican. A collection of abolitionist and democratic reformers, some of whom were fervent supporters of trade unionism and in opposition to wage labor such as Benjamin Wade. Later political expressions of classical Radicalism centered around
20808-619: 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
20961-508: 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
21114-425: 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
21267-410: The vague political grouping known as the Levellers, but with the English Restoration of the monarchy such ideas had been discredited. Although the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had increased parliamentary power with a constitutional monarchy and the union of the parliaments brought England and Scotland together, towards the end of the 18th century the monarch still had considerable influence over
21420-481: 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
21573-402: 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
21726-439: The young left-leaning former education minister Jean Zay , and the influential editorialist Maurice Sarraut (brother to the more famous Radical party leader Albert ), were assassinated by the regime's paramilitary police , while others, notably Jean Moulin , participated in the resistance movement to restore the Republic . The Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance was established after World War II to combine
21879-408: Was achieved in 1893 (though female suffrage would have to wait until 1919). After this Radicalism was a minor political force in Belgium, its role taken over by the emergence of a powerful social-democratic party . During the nineteenth century, the Radicals in France were the political group of the far-left, relative to the centre-left " opportunists " (Gambetta: conservative-liberal and republican),
22032-429: Was divinely ordained, radicals supported Lamarckian Evolutionism , a theme proclaimed by street corner agitators as well as some established scientists such as Robert Edmund Grant . Economic conditions improved after 1821 and the United Kingdom government made economic and criminal law improvements, abandoning policies of repression. In 1823, Jeremy Bentham co-founded the Westminster Review with James Mill as
22185-531: 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
22338-402: Was established, closer to the conservative-liberalism of the British and Belgian Liberal parties. This marked the end of Radicalism as an independent political force in Europe, though some countries such as France and Switzerland retained politically important Radical parties well into the 1950s–1960s. Many European parties that are nowadays categorised in the group of social-liberal parties have
22491-400: 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
22644-469: 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
22797-440: Was loose enough and its Radicalism broad enough to contain many different tendencies, notably a Radical-Socialist left wing led by Alvaro de Albornoz , a centrist wing led by Diego Martínez-Barrio and a right wing led (from 1910) by Alejandro Lerroux . Over time the left factions periodically splintered off to form more socially-progressive Radical parties such as the Radical Socialist Republican Party in 1928. Consequently, by
22950-446: Was provided by "Philosophical radicals" who followed the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals". In Ireland, the United Irishmen movement took another direction, adding to the doctrine of a secular and parliamentary republic inspired by the American and French republican revolutions , another doctrine of
23103-411: 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
23256-458: Was taken up by the middle class Anti-Corn Law League founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright in 1839 to oppose duties on imported grain which raised the price of food and so helped landowners at the expense of ordinary people. The parliamentary Radicals joined with the Whigs and anti-protectionist Tory Peelites to form the Liberal Party by 1859. Demand for parliamentary reform increased by 1864 with agitation from John Bright and
23409-437: 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 ,
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