Much as it galls the French, English has become Europe’s cultural lingua franca | Tomiwa Owolade

The British may have left the EU, but if recent films are to go by, their language remains centre stage

French was once the pre-eminent international language of Europe; the language of diplomacy and intellectual culture, spoken from Paris to St Petersburg, the successor to Latin, the tongue of every civilised man and woman.

In 1871, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, crushed France and annexed the territory of Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian war. More than a decade later, Bismarck hosted the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which carved up Africa into European colonies, and spoke to the other European delegates in French.

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