The French Strategy of the Saarland. A German Federal State on the Way to a Living European Multilingualism

Summary:

With the France Strategy, Saarland set out in 2014 to become an efficient multilingual German-French region within a generation. French is to join German as a lingua franca and be complemented by English and other foreign languages.

With the motto “More languages - more opportunities”, the state, which is particularly marked by the Franco-German reconciliation, began to further deepen its European orientation. It is thus becoming the only multilingual state in the Federal Republic of Germany and a reference region for living European multilingualism.

How can such a fundamental process of change succeed for an entire region? How will it be possible for a proposal by the state government to ultimately become a project for society as a whole that is supported and driven forward by the population, the economy, local authorities, institutions and organizations? What progress is being made on the path to multilingualism and how is it being achieved? What remains to be done and in which areas do efforts need to be intensified? What further perspectives are emerging?

The text provides answers to these questions and shows how, through the proposal of a strong vision for the future and continuous participatory processes, movement and change ultimately emerge throughout the country and all social groups in great breadth jointly shape a concrete development and future goal for the region from the vision - with political and economic success not only in the local, regional and cross-border context, but also at the national, European level and beyond.