The day before I was due to interview a leading French industrialist some years ago, I got a call from his press officer to discuss the arrangements. At the end of the conversation, she said: “By the way, the interview will be in French.”
I spent the afternoon in London anxiously preparing and rehearsing my questions. Switching on my recorder in the great man’s office in Paris the next day, I asked what language he wanted to use. “English,” he said.
I have learnt not to take the furious debate in France over the incursion of English too seriously, including the recent fuss over a new law to allow more teaching in English in French universities.