France’s dozens of regional languages may no longer be spoken by many, but they live on in regional accents, colouring vowel sounds and shaping intonation. More than half the country speaks French with an accent, yet they remain a disadvantage in the upper echelons of power and professional life.
“At school, at university or in the mass media, it’s common to consider having an accent a bit of a bad thing. It’s not something positive,” says Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus, a sociolinguist at the university of Aix-Marseille, who is a specialist on his own accent from Marseille.
“When you try to move into the upper classes, you abandon whatever recalls that you come from a certain place or certain region,” he explains.
The standard French accent heard in broadcast media and from politicians has its origins in Paris – although no single Parisian accent actually exists.
“Centralisation is very strong in France, because everything is concentrated around Paris,” says Gasquet-Cyrus.
Listen to an interview with Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus in the Spotlight on France podcast:
France’s regional accents are remnants of the many languages once spoken across the country – including Alsatian, Basque and Occitan – until the early 20th century, when all languages besides French were banned in newly created public schools.
But these languages left their mark on the way people speak French – heard today, for example, in the nasal vowels at the ends of some words and open vowels in others of the Marseille accent.
“The accent comes mainly from the Occitan language, Provençal,” says Gasquet-Cyrus. “It is seen as a singing accent, because we have this pattern.”
Podcast: France’s local languages
Stereotypes, north and south
Northern accents, many of which skip consonants or swap vowels and consonants, are not viewed as positively as those from the south.
“It’s harder to have these accents, which are considered very working-class,” Gasquet-Cyrus says.
He adds, however, that despite being received more positively, partly thanks to associations with holidays spent in the south, southern accents have disadvantages too.
“There’s a cheerful, happy connotation, with a lot of stereotypes attached. The consequence is that it is not considered a serious accent. When you have to do something serious with a Marseille accent, you can feel that it’s considered funny.”
Gasquet-Cyrus admits he tones down his own accent when he speaks in public, even as a linguist.
“I think the stereotypes are so deeply rooted in our mentalities that I cannot escape them. So I unconsciously change my way of speaking.“
Making headlines
In 2020 some MPs attempted to pass legislation adding “glottophobia” – discrimination on the basis of accent – to the list of punishable offences, alongside racial or sexual discrimination.
The proposal came in the wake of an incident involving the hard-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, when he was questioned by journalists about an investigation into campaign finance irregularities.
Visibly annoyed, he mocked the accent of a journalist from the south-west of France. After telling her she was talking nonsense, he then asked the group: “Does anyone have a question in more or less comprehensible French?”
The incident made headlines, and controversy over accents became a national issue.
Public life
Those who speak with regional accents remain rare in French public life.
Jean Castex, who served as prime minister from 2020 to 2022, speaks with an accent from the south-west – and was mocked for it. Few other national politicians have held on to their accents.
François Bayrou, who served as prime minister in 2024, doesn’t speak with the accent of the Pyrenees region, where he comes from, but was known to drop in a few words of Béarnais dialect in speeches when he was mayor of the south-western city of Pau.
One of the only high-profile French journalists with a regional accent is Jean-Michel Aphatie, who is originally from the Basque Country.
In a book on accents he co-wrote in 2020, he describes having his accent noticed and calls it mere “good luck” that it has never held him back, while “others found themselves prisoners of their accents”.
Online shift
While standard, accent-free French still dominates broadcast media, more variation is emerging online.
“On social media networks and YouTube channels, things are changing. People are open to variation, because you can produce content without having to go through Paris,” says Gasquet-Cyrus.
“Radio and television are still conservative, with a representation of the only ‘good’ accent, or standard French,” he added.
“When you hear someone with an accent, you notice it. The simple fact that you notice it is a sign that things have not really changed.”
Listen to an interview with Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 144 here.
