50 Fun Facts About La Francophonie: the French-Speaking World

Which North African country, home to millions of French speakers, has stayed out of La Francophonie?

Algeria is not a member, although French is widely used in its government, media and schools. France ruled the country for 132 years, until independence in 1962.

Which country, Africa's second-largest by area, is the most populous officially French-speaking nation on Earth?

DR Congo has well over 100 million people, far more than France itself. French is its only official language, a legacy of Belgian rule, alongside four national languages.

Which European microstate counts the president of France as one of its two princes, alongside a Spanish bishop?

Andorra is headed by two co-princes, the president of France and the Bishop of Urgell. Its only official language is Catalan, yet it is a member of La Francophonie.

Which comic characters did the Belgian cartoonist Peyo first draw in 1958 for the French-language magazine Spirou?

The Smurfs began as Les Schtroumpfs, a word Peyo made up at a meal when he could not remember the word for salt. Smurf is the Dutch translation.

Which dish of French fries, cheese curds and gravy emerged in rural Quebec in the late 1950s?

Poutine was long mocked and used to belittle Quebec society, until younger Quebecers reclaimed the dish as their own. Several restaurants still claim to have invented it.

Which singer from Charlemagne, Quebec, released D'eux in 1995, the best-selling French-language album ever?

Céline Dion made D'eux with the French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, who wrote 11 of its 12 tracks. In the United States it was sold as The French Album.

Which French-speaking island nation in the Indian Ocean supplies most of the world's natural vanilla?

Madagascar supplies about 80% of the world's natural vanilla. French shares official status there with Malagasy.

Which French baron revived the Olympic Games, where every announcement is still made in French before English?

Pierre de Coubertin co-founded the International Olympic Committee and served as its second president. At each Games, French is spoken first, then English, then the host nation's language.

Which Caribbean country broke from France in 1804, the only nation in history founded by a slave revolt?

Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804 after defeating French troops at the Battle of Vertières. It became the second republic in the Americas, after the United States.

Which US state, whose largest city French colonists founded in 1718, joined La Francophonie as an observer in 2018?

Louisiana became the first US state in the organisation, three centuries after New Orleans was founded. A state agency, CODOFIL, has promoted French there since 1968.

Which town outside Paris, famous for its royal palace, hosted the first Francophonie summit in 1986?

Versailles welcomed 41 countries and governments in February 1986, with President François Mitterrand as host. The leaders have gathered about every two years since.

Which former United Nations chief became the first Secretary-General of La Francophonie in 1997?

Boutros Boutros-Ghali took the post a year after a United States veto denied him a second term at the UN. The Egyptian diplomat led La Francophonie until 2002.

Which Swiss city, the largest in French-speaking Romandy, hosts the European headquarters of the United Nations?

Geneva hosts more international organisations than any other city, earning it the nickname Peace Capital. It stands where the Rhône flows out of the lake that shares its name.

Which historically Dutch-speaking Belgian city is now a mostly French-speaking enclave inside Flanders?

Brussels began shifting from Dutch to French in the late 19th century, as locals assimilated and newcomers arrived from France and Wallonia. The capital region is officially bilingual.

Which country, under French mandate after the First World War, prints French beside Arabic on its banknotes?

Lebanon declared independence in 1943, yet all its coins and banknotes remain bilingual in Arabic and French. Beirut hosted the Francophonie summit in 2002.

Which West African country, home to Timbuktu, dropped French as its official language under a 2023 constitution?

Mali kept French only as a working language after 97% of voters approved the new constitution in a referendum run by its military rulers. Thirteen national languages are official instead.

Which country, whose footballers are the Indomitable Lions, has both French and English as official languages?

Cameroon was divided between France and the United Kingdom after the First World War, and the two parts reunited in 1961. Tourist brochures call the country Africa in miniature.

Which island in French Polynesia staged the Paris 2024 Olympic surfing, a record 15,000 km from the host city?

Tahiti was chosen for the famously massive waves at Teahupo'o. No Olympic medal event had ever been held so far from its host city.

The CFA franc, created by France in 1945 for its African colonies, has been pegged since 1999 to which currency?

The euro took over from the French franc as the anchor, at a fixed rate of 655.957 CFA francs. The initials first stood for French colonies of Africa.

Which French explorer founded Quebec City in 1608 and is remembered as the Father of New France?

Samuel de Champlain crossed the Atlantic more than twenty times and governed the colony until his death in 1635. Lake Champlain is named after him.

International Francophonie Day, 20 March, marks a 1970 convention signed in which capital on the Niger River?

Niamey hosted the 21 states and governments that founded the Agency for Cultural and Technical Co-operation, the forerunner of La Francophonie. The day itself was created in 1988.

Which country swapped French for English in its schools in 2008, yet later supplied La Francophonie's leader?

Rwanda's long-serving foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo was chosen as Secretary-General in 2018 with the backing of France's president. Her own university degree was in English.

Which country staged the first Jeux de la Francophonie in 1989, a games with medals for arts as well as sport?

Morocco held the first edition in Casablanca and Rabat, opened by King Hassan II. Singers, storytellers, poets and painters compete for gold, silver and bronze alongside the athletes.

Which country, ancestral home of singer Charles Aznavour, hosted the 2018 Francophonie summit days after he died?

Armenia welcomed the leaders to Yerevan ten days after Aznavour died, aged 94. The Paris-born son of Armenian immigrants had served as the country's ambassador to Switzerland.

Which French-language TV network was founded in 1984 by public broadcasters from France, Belgium and Switzerland?

TV5Monde takes its number from the five public channels that founded it: three French, one Swiss and one Belgian. It began broadcasting on 2 January 1984 as plain TV5.

Which company, founded by two Quebec street performers in 1984, is the world's largest contemporary circus producer?

Cirque du Soleil grew out of a troupe of stilt walkers, and one founder walked 56 miles on stilts to win funding from the Quebec government. Its name is French for Circus of the Sun.

Which Asian capital hosted the 1997 summit that appointed La Francophonie's first Secretary-General?

Hanoi staged the seventh summit, which adopted a revised charter and named the first holder of the new post. The city had been the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1945.

Which Canadian city, on an island in the St Lawrence, houses the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie?

Montreal was founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie and takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill at its heart. The university network born there in 1961 has over a thousand members.

Which officially bilingual Canadian province joined Quebec as a participating government of La Francophonie in 1977?

New Brunswick takes part in its own right, as Quebec has since 1971, and hosted the 1999 summit in Moncton. About a third of New Brunswickers are French-speaking.

Which former Governor General of Canada led La Francophonie from 2015 to 2019, the first woman in the post?

Michaëlle Jean had been a journalist and broadcaster before becoming Governor General. She sought a second term at La Francophonie but lost to a candidate backed by France and, in the end, Canada.

Which poet, the first president of Senegal, became the first African elected to the Académie française?

Léopold Sédar Senghor led Senegal for twenty years before retiring in 1980 and handing power to his successor. He was also one of the African leaders who pushed for the founding of La Francophonie.

Which West African country, whose economic hub is Abidjan, exports more cocoa beans than any other nation?

Ivory Coast grew into West Africa's economic powerhouse in the 1960s and 1970s on coffee and cocoa. Since 1986 its government has asked to be called Côte d'Ivoire in every language.

Which West African country was Upper Volta until 1984, when Thomas Sankara gave it a name meaning land of honest men?

Burkina Faso joins words from two local languages: burkina is Mooré for upright, and faso is Dyula for fatherland. Its people are Burkinabé, with an ending borrowed from a third language, Fula.

FESPACO, the African film festival held every two years in Ouagadougou, names its top prize after which golden animal?

The Golden Stallion of Yennenga honours a legendary princess, the founder of the Mossi empire. The festival has been running since 1969.

Which French-speaking capital, on mainland Africa's westernmost point, was long the finish of a famous desert rally?

Dakar was the usual finish of the rally that carries its name from the first race until 2007. The event later moved to South America and then to Saudi Arabia.

Which Indian Ocean island nation, the only known home of the dodo, was called Isle de France under French rule?

Mauritius passed to Britain in 1810 and took back its Dutch-given name, yet nine in ten islanders still speak a French-based creole at home. The dodo supports the national coat of arms.

Which African capital holds a basilica, inspired by St Peter's, that Guinness lists as the world's largest church?

Yamoussoukro was the birthplace of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who made it the capital in 1983 and gave the basilica to the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II consecrated it in 1990.

Which West African territory alone rejected Charles de Gaulle's 1958 constitution and became independent within days?

Guinea was the only territory to vote no, and independence followed four days later. Departing French officials destroyed as much infrastructure as they could on their way out.

Which French-speaking country, lying on the Equator, joined the Commonwealth in 2022 alongside Togo?

Gabon was admitted in June 2022 although Britain never ruled it, then partially suspended after its 2023 coup. French remains its only official language.

Which country, called French Somaliland until 1967, keeps French and Arabic as its official languages?

Djibouti went by a second colonial name, the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, before independence in 1977. Somali and Afar are its national languages.

Which name for French settlers expelled from Maritime Canada by the British was worn down into the word Cajun?

Acadians took their name from Acadia, a label most likely going back to an explorer's 1524 nod to Arcadia in Greece. The British deportations ran from 1755 to 1764.

France's longest land border is with Brazil, thanks to which overseas department that also hosts Europe's spaceport?

French Guiana is the only territory on the mainland of the Americas still under a European state's sovereignty. Its launch site near Kourou was chosen for being close to the equator.

Which French Caribbean island saw its town of Saint-Pierre destroyed by the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée?

Martinique lost almost the whole town within minutes, with a death toll close to 30,000. Refugees sailed to a neighbouring island, and some of them stayed for good.

The French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon lie just 19 km off which Canadian island?

Newfoundland is far closer to the islands than France is: Brest, the nearest city in mainland France, lies 3,819 km away. Britain handed them back to France under the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

Which small European state writes all its laws in French, though its national language is a Germanic one?

Luxembourg uses French as the sole language of legislation, Luxembourgish as its national language and German alongside both in administration. It is Europe's seventh-smallest country.

Which Belgian musician topped charts across Europe with the French-language dance hit Alors on danse?

Stromae chose a stage name that flips the syllables of maestro, a kind of French slang known as verlan. His second album sold two million copies in France.

Which Pacific nation was run jointly by Britain and France as the New Hebrides until independence in 1980?

Vanuatu emerged from an Anglo-French condominium set up in 1906, and it now sits in both the Commonwealth and La Francophonie. Its name joins local words for land and to stand.

Which French territory in the Pacific did James Cook name after Scotland, of which its coast reminded him?

New Caledonia borrows the Latin name for Scotland, which Cook gave it on sighting the main island in 1774. France later sent thousands of political prisoners there.

Which city on India's southeast coast began as a French settlement in 1674 and passed to India only in 1954?

Pondicherry was laid out with a canal dividing its French Quarter from the Indian Quarter. France also held smaller enclaves in India, among them Mahé and Karaikal.

The word francophonie was coined in 1880 by Onésime Reclus, a Frenchman who worked in which profession?

Geographer Onésime Reclus used the word to group peoples by the language they spoke, but it did not reach dictionaries until 1930. Two of his brothers followed the same calling.