Pourquoi la France a-t-elle besoin d’une politique linguistique?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the legitimacy of language policy and language planning instituted in France. Embarking on four directions of inquiry, the belonging of language to the social, the position of French in the global linguistic system, the place France occupies in the world-system and the gravitation around the centre of social groups constituting the world-system, and their synchronisation with the centre, the paper tries to shift the debates concerning the notable draw back of French from the international scene from issues concerning the language itself to a more socially covered ground. The basic assumption that the position of French, although a major language, is a consequence of the so-called decline of French society allows us to search for possible answers in the dynamics of social groups since language is both a factor of identity and a mirror of power relations between groups.