what's the percentage in your country of people who are able to speak fluently French ?

Question

Or as a second language.
Every answer is welcome thanks to everybody!
Give details if possible , precise answers will be prefered.

Answer 1

According to the EU 20% of people in Ireland have some knowledge of French but that would include alot of schools students who study French as a subject in school and who will most likely never use it again once they leave and forget it.

However, French is spoken in all the major cities of Ireland due to:
1) French-speaking students studying in universities
2) French-speaking people working in businesses
3) French-speaking communities living here long-term
4) Immigration from French-speaking Africa

I would say the figure for people who can speak French natively or at a high level in Ireland and who are living here for either work or study to be around 1% or: 42,000 people.

That figure is for the winter seasons. For the summer the figure would increase due to French-speaking tourists.

Answer 2

I definitely agree that Canadians seem friendlier more intelligent, and more open-minded OVERALL but of course you can NEVER generalise a population. I'm neither Canadian nor American (I'm British) although I've visited the USA and I've met many Canadians, I will say that the Americans I met in California were just as intelligent, friendly and open-minded as the Canadians I meet from time to time. And about the language thing, a lot of Canadians do speak French yes it's an official language over there so of course they do, but there's also a huge number of Spanish speaking Americans too, and if you think about it, quite a lot of Canadians are actually French Native or have French parents anyway.

Answer 3

Canada:
-Most of Quebec speaks at least some French, 93% are Francophone
-As for the other provinces, they are supposed to all know French but only about 80% do, with maybe 5-10% being fluent

Quebec is the 2nd most populated province

Answer 4

Belgium : about 40% (Walloons and french-speaking inhabitants of the Brussels region) speak French as a mother tongue. About 20-30% (and falling) of the Flemish, about 40% of the other inhabitants of Brussels, and about all of the small group of German speakers in Belgium, speak French fluently as a second language. About 60 to 70% of the total population.

Answer 5

Back in the 11th century, it is estimated that there were about 20,000 French speakers in England out of a total population of 1.5 - 2 million, i.e. about 1%.

It's probably less than 1% these days, which means less than about 500,000 for England. English ways of teaching foreign languages are dreadful - for several years, learning a foreign language at school has not been compulsory, so there will be many kids with zero foreign language skills joining the workforce.

Answer 6

In Italy quite many people studied/study French at school (in the region of 10% of the population I suppose), but only few are really fluent, say 1% of the population or less.

Answer 7

I am not sure of the percentage, but at least 1.6 million people speak French in the United States. Good luck!

Answer 8

Hello,

In Canada 23% of the population speaks French as a mother tongue. That translates into 6.7 million people.

Answer 9

As someone else mentioned in Canada, 23% have French as their mother tongue (with the greatest concentration being in Quebec) and roughly 17% of the Canadian population is bilingual (French and English).

Answer 10

Less than 1% Just enough for us to ask advice from France on retreating strategies.