Discover the number of French speakers all over the globe

The United Nations celebrate each 20 march as the day of the french language.

Together with the other language days of the UN, the 20 march reminds the importance of linguistic diversity and the positive impact of multilingualism for cultural, economic and diplomatic exchanges. The date is inspired by the 20 march 1970, the foundation day of the OIF (Organisation internationale de la francophonie) – a geolinguistic organisation for all frenchspeaking persons in the world.

French is one of the six official languages of the UN too, together with English, Arab, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

This article presents percentage values of the OIF concerning the francophone population shares in different countries. All these values refer to the year 2022.

Which programs exist to learn French abroad ? 

This blog post cannot list all institutions that propose french courses abroad. I’ll name just a few for my francophile readers.

TV5 Monde  is a TV station and media portal financed by several francophone countries. Its website proposes special columns for example concerning language learning or concerning Africa-related content.

The Alliance Française  is a cultural NGO that works together with the french ministry of the interior and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. It runs a network of 820 institutes in 135 countries.

The Institut Français is a public organism managed by the french ministry for foreign affairs and the french ministry for culture. Similar to the Alliance Française it runs a network of several hundred institutes all over the world.

There are as well special funds, as for example the « Fonds de solidarité pour les projets innovants » (FSPI) of the french ministry for foreign affairs, which finances innovative projects, ie. in the area of the promotion of the french language (francophonie).

Even in countries with a special geopolitical status, as for example Venezuela or Cuba, there are institutes of the Alliance Française and/ or projects financed by funds as the FSPI.

How many people in the world speak French ?

According to the homepage of the OIF (Organisation internationale de la francophonie) French is spoken by 321 million people on five continents (2022 value). The biggest frenchspeaking countries are France, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo RDC), Algeria and Morocco.

The number of those people that have a native or bilingual level in French must be extrapolated from the annual OIF reports. The report for 2022 states that 79% of the French speakers worldwide are « born and/ or live with French ». Thus, 254 millions of the overall 321 million french speakers can be considered as having a native speaking level.

In 2025, the OIF Organisation has 93 member countries, of which 56 are direct members, 32 have an observer status, and 5 are associated members.

An interesting fact with the member list of this francophonic organisation is the absence of several big countries : Germany (despite the important french-german partnership), the UK, Spain and Italy. The last two countries have official languages that belong to the same language group as French – the romanic languages. India is not an OIF member neither, although it has a big frenchspeaking community in the Pondicherry region (Puducherry).

The OIF provides data for some countries that are not OIF members. For many other Non-OIF-countries there is no data at all. This concerns the regions Asia (India, China, Japan, Philippines etc.), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), South America (Brazil, Peru), Africa (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia etc).

Before we will get to the detailed list of frenchspeaking countries, l’ll tell you how I came to French.

My way to the language of Molière

As a german native speaker from Austria  I learned French as a foreign language. Austria does not have such strong ties with France as Germany (as a direct neighbour country) has.

The cross-border relations between Germany and France are very active. Several big cities in both countries are within a 20 km distance to the border : Strasbourg (France), Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Saarbrücken. Especially the german state of Saarland has a strong bilingual tradition. There is even a project called « Frankreichstrategie », which aims to improve the mastery of the french language among the regional population, for enhanced exchanges with France, Luxembourg and Belgium.

Germany and France are closely linked to each other as well by the concept of the french-german cooperation. In 1963 Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer signed the bilateral Elysee Treaty. Since then, the french-german friendship among the two biggest EU-countries is an important principle in european politics.

Although Germany has a privileged bilateral relation with France, it is not a member state of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. But Austria is an OIF member (with an observer status).

According to the OIF, 15% of the Germans are frenchspeaking, and 13% of the Austrians.

When I was in high school, I even took additional classes in French. Nevertheless, real life conversations were a challenge. For the preparation of my final high school exam I had to do some research at the « Institut français de Vienne ». The employee there refused (rightly) to speak German, and it was kind of exciting to express my needs in French.

A language stay in a frenchspeaking country (which I did not do back then) is certainly a good means to improve one’s conversational skills.

Before I moved to France, I took care to have a linguistic level that allowed me to be autonomous in all my affairs. Then I became quickly bilingual. Of course, the best driving force towards the fluency in a foreign language is a personal passion for it.

Let’s now explore the full list of frenchspeaking countries in the world.

The european countries where French is an official language

France is the very country pupils are most likely to discover in their french courses. France is composed of metropolitan France (with Paris), Corsica, and many overseas regions.

The DOM-TOMs (départements et territoires d’outre-mer) are situated in various parts of the globe. The french government has even a specialised ministry for the overseas territories.

In the Carribean there are Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélémy and Saint Martin. In South-America there is Guyane. Besides the african continent there are La Réunion and Mayotte. East of Australia is La Nouvelle Calédonie. In the south pacific ocean there is French Polynesia and Wallis-et-Futuna. At the eastern shore of Canada there is Saint Pierre et Miquelon. North of Antarctica are situated the TAAF islands (Terres australes et antarctiques françaises).

In Belgium (76%), Switzerland (67%) and Luxembourg (92%), French is one of the official languages of these countries. Monaco has one single official language – French.

European countries where French is not an official language

Although several european countries are not members of this francophonic organisation, the OIF indicates in its full report for the year 2022 the numbers for the frenchspeaking population shares : Portugal (25%), Italy (20%), the Netherlands (19%), the UK (16%), Germany (15%), Spain (12%), Denmark (8%), Sweden (8%), Finland (8%), Norway (3%), Russia (0,4%).

The following european countries are OIF-members :

Andorra (situated in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain) has Catalan as official language. But 70% of the population speak French too.

Romania has a francophone population of 12%. Romanian is – like French – a romance language too. This makes it rather easy for Romanians to learn French. 

The OIF indicates a value of 13% for Austria, Malta and Ireland – where the official languages do not belong to the Romance Language Group.

Then there are other OIF-members where smaller parts of the population are frenchspeaking : Cyprus (7%), Greece (7%), Serbia (4%), Poland (3%), Bulgaria (2%), North Macedonia (2%), Montenegro (2%), Croatia (2%), Slovenia (2%), Slovakia (2%), the Czech Republic (2%), Lithuania (2%), Estonia (1%), Latvia (1%), Hungary (1%), Bosnia (1%), Kosovo (1%), Albania (1%), Moldova (1%), Ukraine (0,1%). 

French in the Caucasus Region and the Middle-East   

In Georgia 0,4% of the inhabitants are francophone. Armenia has 0,3% of its population that speaks French. 

Lebanon has a very high rate of 38%. In Qatar there are 4%, in the United Arab Emirates 3%. Israel (which is not an OIF member) has 6%.

French in the Carribean, in Asia and in the South Seas Region

In the Carribean there are – apart from the french overseas territories – various other states where French is spoken : Dominica (10%), Saint Lucia (2%), the Dominican Republic (1%).

In Haiti French (42%) is one of the official languages, together with Creole.

In Asia, the countries of the former Indochina have the following frenchspeaking population segments : 3% in Cambodia and Laos, 1% in Vietnam.

No values are given for South Korea, Thailand has 1%. In the Southern Pacific there is Vanuatu with 31% of French speakers.

French in America

The french language in Canada : French is an official language in Canada, spoken by about 29% of the population, especially in the regions New Brunswick (Nouveau-Brunswick), Québec, Ontario and Nova Scotia (Nouvelle-Ecosse).

The USA are not in the OIF ; they are estimated to have a frenchspeaking population of 1%. However, the american state of Louisiana (which had been a french colony in the 18th century) is in the OIF. Today, this state at the Gulf of America (or Gulf of Mexico) has only 2% of francophone speakers.

Several central- and southamerican countries are observing members of the OIF. Argentina and Chile are indicated without precise numbers. Mexico has 0,02% of French speakers. In Costa Rica and Uruguay their number is 0,1%. Data is available for some countries that are not in the OIF : Colombia (0,01%) and Paraguay (0,2%).

Which african countries speak French ?

French is an important language in the Maghreb Countries in North Africa, but it does not have the status of an official language. In Morocco 36% speak French, in Tunisia 52%. Algeria, the third Maghreb country (which is not a member of the OIF), has 33% of french speakers.  

In Egypt 3% of the citizens express themselves in French.

Then there are the countries in subsaharan Africa and the islands around Africa. In some of them French is the only official language, while the local african languages do not have this status.

In these countries French is the sole official language : 65% in Gabon, 61% in Congo, 51% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 41% in Togo, 34% in Benin, 34% in Côte d’Ivoire, 27% in Guinea, 26 % in Senegal, 24% in Burkina Faso.

The african countries, where French is one of several official languages, are: Seychelles (53%), Djibouti (50%), Cameroon (41%), Central African Republic (29%), Equatorial Guinea (29%), Madagascar (26%), Comoros (26%), Mali (17%), Niger (13%), Tchad (13%), Burundi (9%), Rwanda (6%).

And there are countries in Africa, where French has the status of a foreign language : Mauritius (73%), São Tomé et Principe (20%), Gambia (20%), Guinea-Bissau (15%), Mauritania (13%), Cabo Verde (11%), Ghana (1%), Mozambique (0,3%), Angola (na).

« The future of the french language is in Africa « (OIF Report 2022)

The OIF Report 2022 underlines the importance of Africa for the evolution of French in the world. People that use French on a daily basis are situated at 47,2% in subsaharan Africa, at 14,6% in the Maghreb region, at 31,3% in Europe, at 6,6% in the Americas and Carribean, and at 0,3% in Asia and Oceania.

Congo RDC is a special country in francophone Africa. According to the OIF, 51% of its 115 400 000 inhabitants (in 2024) speak French – which is a number of 58 854 000 people. One day, Congo RDC may outpace France and become the biggest frenchspeaking country in the world.

There is nothing to worry about with this evolution. The French and Belgians brought their language to Africa. Today, Africans participate as well in shaping the future of French. The first president of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001), was as well an important poet and a member of the Académie Française in Paris – the most prestigious institution for the french language.

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