EU/France: French president Jacques Chirac caused a minor diplomatic rumpus yesterday by walking out of a meeting of EU leaders when the French head of a business group chose to speak in English.
Mr Chirac, who has been criticised for promoting "economic nationalism" in the run-up to the EU summit, stormed out of the meeting when Ernest-Antoine Seillière, head of the lobby group UNICE, began speaking English at a session on "jobs and growth".
He was joined by three of his ministers - foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, finance minister Thierry Breton and Europe minister Catherine Colonna - who all left the room during a presentation made by Mr Seillière.
The walk-out occurred when Mr Seillière, an accomplished linguist with fluent English, told the gathering of EU leaders that he would be addressing the meeting in English "because that is the accepted business language of Europe today".
He began his speech in French before switching to English, prompting the walk-out.
The French government delegation then missed Mr Seillière - the former head of the French employers' body - urging EU leaders to "resist national protectionism in order to avoid a negative domino effect" throughout the EU's internal market.
The presentation obliquely criticised the French government, which recently intervened to block an Italian firm tabling a takeover bid for French energy firm Suez. However, Mr Chirac's advisers said the walk-out was to defend the French language.
"Some people would like to think it was a coincidence that the French delegation left just as Mr Seillière broke into English. Some would even like to believe that three French ministers and their president all chose to go to the toilet at the same time," said a diplomat, who added it was inevitable that Mr Chirac would make a stand.
English, French and German are the working languages of the EU but all 20 official languages are used at EU summits. However, since EU enlargement in 2004 and the entry of east European states, English has overtaken French as the EU's lingua franca. The French government spends huge amounts of money promoting the language.
When Mr Chirac returned to the session after Mr Seillière had finished his presentation, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, was addressing the EU leaders in his native language of French.