Extent and limits

The extent and limits of the use of English at that time were brought out in studies carried out in Strasbourg in 1984 and 1986. The first study (Cox, in Truchot 1990) concerned a branch of General Motors (GM) in Strasbourg.

English was regularly used there by the management and its departments, i.e. by about 250 people out of a staff of 2250. Use fluctuated but was an everyday fact and could be estimated at an average of one or two hours per day, and much more in the case of senior executives. It was required by the company's head office in Detroit, which communicated with its branches throughout the world only in English. As a result, horizontal relations between branches were also conducted in English. At that time the Strasbourg factory had an American manager who spoke no French.

The second study (D. Cenki, in Truchot 1990) concerned France Telecom, which was then called Télécommunications françaises and constituted one of the two departments of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. Its subsequent evolution into a multinational company illustrates the economic changes which occurred afterwards. Out of a staff of 150,000, about 5,000 worked in sectors which sold services and technology outside France and made everyday use of foreign languages, mainly English, but also others, including Spanish and Arabic.

These studies reveal the two main reasons why English was used for working purposes at the time: first, exports and the search for markets and, second, the establishment of large multinational foreign companies. It should be noted that not all American multinationals used English as much as General Motors and that multinationals of other origins used it too. It is also worth noting that the share of the major foreign companies in the French economy, on the one hand, and the degree of internationalisation of French companies, on the other, were markedly smaller than they would become 15 years later.