Where is French an official language?

One of the romantic languages, French is also one of the most widely spoken languages around the world. Apart from France, French is spoken in many other countries. It is estimated that there are around 220 million French speakers across the globe and thus, knowing the language can be helpful.

The language of the enlightened, French is also the one of the working languages and official language of the United Nations, the European Union, UNESCO, NATO and other organizations. In 2011, the Bloomberg Businessweek had stated that French was the third most useful language for business following English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Currently, there are 29 countries in the world where French is official or co-official language.

Thirteen nations have French as their official language. Aside from Monaco and France, rest of them are African countries; Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, and Togo.

In 16 countries, French is the co-official language along with other languages. In Canada, most French speakers live in eastern province of Quebec. In Switzerland, French is the official language along with German, Italian, and Romansh. In Belgium, it is the official language along with Dutch and German. In Burundi, French is the official language along with Kirundi, while in Luxembourg it is French, Luxembourgish, and German.

Other nations where French is the co-official language are Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, and Vanuatu.

The table below provides information about the nations where French is the official language.

Know more about languages:

• English Speaking Countries
• Arabic Language

• Spanish language
• Queen’s English

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