Most mornings Nigel and I listen to BBC Radio 4, he always very intently and I somewhat with half an ear as I’m more in tune working on Happy Lappy responding to emails. But this morning my attention was riveted when Edward Stourton interviewed Jacques Myard, the French minister from Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP Party, concerning his immense shock and subsequent bitter complaint over the choice of English in this year’s French entry in the Eurovision Song Contest taking place on Saturday, May 24 in Belgrade.

Indeed, it seems he is not the only one from Sarkozy’s cabinet to feel appalled. Francois-Michel Gonnot is to launch an official complaint in the French Parliament this afternoon with a question to Christine Albanel, minister of Culture while also pointing out his dissatisfaction on his blog under the title Shame on France 3.

Talking to Edward Stourton, Myard voiced his concern how the French language was under serious threat in the face of English imperialism and that by publicizing the French song in English was yet another nail in the coffin. He explained how he had just heard that the European Commission were dropping the French and German translation of statistics in favour of English only. For Myard, language is the heart of a nation’s culture and a tool for its economy. What, he wondered, will be the result if we are speaking constantly English - would foreign students still come to our country to pick up the language when even the French don’t use it?

As a byline it is interesting to note that from 1956 until 1965, no rule existed restricting the languages in which the Eurovision songs could be sung. But in 1966 a rule was imposed stating that songs must be performed in one of the official languages of the country participating. This restriction continued until 1973 when it was then lifted, only to revert back in 1977. In 1999 it was changed once again to allow freedom of language.

Though Myard has a good point it is also significant to mention that between one third and two thirds of all English words have a French origin. For the 300 years after the Norman Conquest in 1066, the kings of England spoke only French and during this time, a large number of French words were assimilated into Old English and resulted into Middle English. During the 17th-19th centuries, French was the lingua franca of the European elite. Monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could speak and write in French. Russian nobility used French for everyday communication.

While there may be 328 million worldwide native speakers of the English language, there are nonetheless a massive 77 million native French speakers. And though there is a mind-boggling 495 million who speak English as an additional language, 50 million people use French as theirs. More interestingly, there are 16 million French people who speak English as their second language. Even more mind boggling: there are around 400,000 people of French nationality living in the UK, most of them in London while there is a British population of just over 100,000 living full time in France.

While English is the first foreign language in education in all EU Member States, French is nearly always the second.

And so, while I understand Myard’s disappointment that his country has chosen English to represent their country’s song, I can only applaud Sebastien Tellier for his gutsy determination because, and let’s face it, which English singer can you think of that would sing in French for the United Kingdom on such a night? No, I can’t think of one either . . .