Proportion of French speakers (including L2-speakers) by country in 2022, saturating at 50%, according to the OIF Ĩ0–99% Francophone Statistics OIF figures Population who can understand French in the EU and UK According to the authors of a 2017 book on the world distribution of the French language, a credible estimate of the number of 'francophones réels' (real francophones), that is, individuals who speak French on a daily basis either as their mother tongue or as a second language, would be around 130 million. The OIF figures have been contested as being inflated due to the methodology used and its overly broad definition of the word francophone. The OIF states that despite a decline in the number of learners of French in Europe, the overall number of speakers is rising, largely because of its presence in African countries: of the 350 million who use French daily, 73.9% are living in Africa. Īccording to the 2022 report of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), 450 million people speak French. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the language of European diplomacy and international relations. The French language became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin.
