Editing French language (section)

=== Future ===
According to a demographic projection led by the {{lang|fr|[[Université Laval]]|italic=no}} and the [[Agence universitaire de la Francophonie|Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie]], the total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in [[sub-Saharan Africa]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=24 November 2004 |title=Agora: La francophonie de demain |url=https://www.ledevoir.com/non-classe/69236/agora-la-francophonie-de-demain |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918104416/https://www.ledevoir.com/non-classe/69236/agora-la-francophonie-de-demain |archive-date=18 September 2023 |access-date=13 June 2011}}</ref> OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa.<ref name="OIF" />

In a study published in March 2014 by ''[[Forbes]]'', the investment bank [[Natixis]] said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gobry |first=Pascal-Emmanuel |title=Want To Know The Language Of The Future? The Data Suggests It Could Be...French |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924181751/http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/ |archive-date=24 September 2015 |access-date=8 August 2017 |website=Forbes}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=December 2023}}

In the [[European Union]], French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains the preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the [[Court of Justice of the European Union]], where it is the sole internal working language, or the [[Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development|Directorate-General for Agriculture]]. Since 2016, [[Brexit]] has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union.<ref>{{Cite web |date=17 October 2019 |title=Focus – EU after Brexit: Will the French language make a comeback? |url=https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20191017-eu-after-brexit-will-the-french-language-make-a-comeback-1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201002121351/https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20191017-eu-after-brexit-will-the-french-language-make-a-comeback-1 |archive-date=2 October 2020 |access-date=16 September 2020 |publisher=France 24}}</ref>