The three speeches recently delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney must have caught the attention of our loyal readers of the OEP Newsletter.
In his speech delivered in Davos on January 20, 20261 , Mark Carney sets forth a vision of society, the world, and international relations that breaks with the ideologies promoted by Donald Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, and the MAGA movement. In response to the breakdown of the world order and the resurgence of brutality among the “powerful”, he brings into conflict middle powers and reaffirms certain fundamental values.
On August 23, at a press conference in Ottawa2 , Mark Carney explains in detail why he is breaking off trade negotiations with the United States faced with an imperialism that has become utterly uninhibited and overtly aggressive, with no other objective than the subjugation and annexation of Canada by its powerful neighbor.
On September 17, before the European Parliament3 , he responded to the proposal made by the President of the European Commission in her State of the European Union address to become the “first associate member.”
Since these events have been widely covered by the press, we only wish to highlight the high symbolic value of Mark Carney’s linguistic treatment of his speeches, which should be compared to the way the European Union communicates linguistically.
Speech is political
Mark Carney speaks principally in English because English, along with French, is one of Canada’s two official languages, and English-speaking Canadians account for 80% of the Canadian population. But it should be added that his use of French is generally rich in meaning.
It is no coincidence that his three speeches began in French. Nor is it a coincidence that French was used at the most significant moments of his addresses.
In his speech against Canada’s vasallaje, Mark Carney switched to French as early as the second paragraph, stating:
For much of our history, the Canadians have been able to count on favorable trade winds: a stable relationship with the United States, increasingly open access to the U.S. market, and rules that both countries understood and respected. These winds have not merely changed direction—the climate has also changed.
Three paragraphs later, he continues again in French:
We are the masters in our own house and the partner par excellence abroad,” a phrase he borrows from Jean Lesage’s campaign slogan during the Quebec elections of November 14, 1962: “masters in our own house.” This phrase would become the rallying cry for Quebec’s liberation from Anglo-Canadian capital.
Then, after a lengthy discussion of the course of negotiations with the Americans, he arrives at what he considers the non-negotiable issue, and in French:
We were not prepared to compromise on our sovereignty, the protection of the French language, and our culture. To our American colleagues, let’s be clear: for my government and for Canada, these issues were never on the agenda, even though the United States tried until the very last minute to include them.
At the end of his speech, he repeated in French the phrase inherited from Quebec’s Quiet Revolution: “In Canada, we are masters in our own house, from coast to coast.” And with this rephrasing, he made it the leitmotif of the liberation of all of Canada from the United States.
It is very clear that the use of French in this speech is closely linked to the concept of sovereignty.
For other excerpts in French and English, please refer to the article that Le Grand Continent devoted to this speech.
Delivered before the European Parliament, the introduction is particularly noteworthy:
“President Metsola, President von der Leyen, Honorable Members of the European Parliament, Distinguished colleagues, Thank you for granting me the honor of addressing you at the start of this decisive session. Today I will speak to you about how our response to the current geopolitical upheaval should incorporate a new dimension. But first, I would like to touch on a longer-standing issue. Something that dates back to long before relations between the European Union and Canada began. For the depth of our ties cannot be measured by trade nor is it enshrined in our treaties. Our ties are deeply rooted in our lands.”
He continues in English, referring to Goethe. One cannot resist quoting the opening sentences of this exceptionally powerful passage:
“In the heart of Germany, above Weimar, stands a wooded ridge called the Ettersberg. For decades, Goethe walked, reflected, and wrote there. An oak tree on that ridge eventually bore his name, a true living monument to the highest ideals of European culture. As the 20th century plunged into darkness, that same oak found itself imprisoned behind the barbed wire of Buchenwald, a silent witness to humanity’s deepest moral failure. Goethe had understood that one must fight for ideals, that values do not defend themselves. Indeed, at the end of *Faust*, the old man’s final vision is that of a free people in a free land. Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, der täglich sie erobern muß. (Only he deserves freedom as much as life itself who must conquer it anew each day) Every day. Not just in 1945, nor in 1956, nor in 1989. Every day, including today.”
To follow an introduction in French with a reference to Goethe—a German poet and philosopher, a European who was perfectly fluent in French and plurilingual—and, above all, to the values he represents, rooted in our history, those of the Enlightenment, is a poetic creation.
The Davos speech also deserves mention, because beginning a speech in French before the “globalized elites” is no trivial matter:
“Today I will speak of the breakdown of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a brutal reality in which the geopolitics of the great powers are subject to no constraints. But I would also argue that other countries, particularly middle powers such as Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that incorporates our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of states. The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.”
In summary, at a press conference in Ottawa, Mark Carney addresses international journalists but above all all Canadians—both English- and French-speaking—whose unity he is keen to celebrate and reaffirm. In Davos, he spoke before the upper echelons of the global economy—who typically speak in English—but opening his speech in French with an implicit yet obvious reference to General de Gaulle’s policies carried significant weight. Both at his press conference and before the European Parliament, the speaking time allocated to French amounted to approximately 15.5% of the total speaking time, which is significantly less than the proportion of Canada’s population whose mother tongue is French—20.2%. This numerical shortfall appears to be largely offset by the meaning and symbolic power of the passages delivered in French.
What does European political communication mean?
This situation must be compared to that of the European institutions, and particularly that of President Ursula von der Leyen.
She has made what she calls the “common language” a key priority in her communication strategy, which is reflected in the following figures in quantitative terms—that is, speaking time—as determined by the Brussels-based association GEM+:
|
ENG |
GER |
FRA |
ITA |
|
|
2019 |
74.4% |
17.7% |
7.9% |
|
|
2020 |
85% |
|||
|
2021 |
75.06% |
13.74% |
11.18% |
|
|
2022 |
74.94% |
13.72% |
11.16% |
0.17% |
|
2023 |
87.9% |
6.9% |
5.1% |
|
|
2025 |
90.87% |
4.35% |
4.78% |
|
|
2026 |
88.92% |
4.02% |
7.06% |
It should be noted that the share of English rose from 74.4% in 2019 to 90.87% in 2025, while that of German rose from 17.7%—which, to within 1 percentage point, corresponded to the share of the German population in the European Union at 4.35% (4.02% in 2026), and the share of French from 7.9%, which is approximately 50% of France’s share of the European population (4.78%), to 7.06%.
The criterion of a language’s share of the total population is debatable, but it does highlight the intent to marginalize German and French in favor of English, which, it should be noted, is the native language of less than 2% of the European Union’s population.
How can this political choice by the President of the European Commission be justified, if at all?
The pragmatic aspect is important. Just to recap: 10 new countries from the former USSR and the Warsaw Pact—whose new leaders were trained in the United States—joined NATO and the European Union almost simultaneously. Choosing English as the de facto working language (all official languages are, according to EU language regulations, intended to serve as working languages) was, in fact, either an obligation or an accepted constraint. Reversing this initial decision would have led to lengthy discussions about the criteria to be applied.
This pragmatic choice was at the same time a strategic one that signified alignment with the United States. In 2005, security guarantees and allegiance to the United States could, in the eyes of most countries, go hand in hand. Today, the two issues are separate.
Presenting English in this context as a neutral language reflects a strange conception of neutrality.
Let’s be clear: this is not about whether or not it is useful to speak English, or whether or not one likes a particular language. That is not the issue. The focus here is on the linguistic communication of senior European political leaders.
English may appear to European officials as technically neutral precisely because it no longer represents anything to European citizens. Often cited as an argument by staunch advocates of English, this argument is of little relevance since the President of the Commission is not addressing her officials specifically.
We cannot ignore Ursula von der Leyen’s desire to promote the common language as a factor of unity and not merely as a practical convenience. Is there a single instance in the history of a nation or an empire where the common language was one borrowed from outside? The illusion is complete. The idea is a harmful and destructive utopia. Europe can only be built on the foundation of European cultures and nations.
In fact, the Commission President is addressing the press and international elites, and by no means the European peoples. A staggering strategic error. But it is understandable. The President of the European Commission is acting as a high-ranking official and is part of a technocratic construct in line with her original vision.
Europe, as expressed by the President of the European Commission, is a rational construct, but one that does not speak to the peoples who dream of uniting their destinies in the name of a higher purpose. We cannot ask her to behave like Charles V and travel across the empire speaking the languages of the countries he governed. Charles V practiced a form of plurilingualism rooted in sovereignty. It was a form of plurilingualism that was also functional, as he addressed officials in the various countries of the Empire who expected him to speak in their language rather than in a foreign one. But the choice of language or languages in each context is a profoundly political act.
Since current events have brought the Pope’s trip to France to the forefront, it will not have escaped anyone’s notice that he spoke in French, which, despite his origins, is not his native language. Everyone understood that, setting aside all religious considerations, he was addressing the entire nation of France and not just the Catholics of France.
To continue along these lines, in September 1962, during his trip to Germany, General de Gaulle delivered several speeches in German, including one in Bonn and another in Ludwigsburg before German young people. The choice of German had considerable symbolic significance here and signified that Europe is founded first and foremost on Franco-German reconciliation and on the need to build Europe together.
The real question for political communication is therefore this: What should we say, what do we say, why do we say it, and to whom do we say it?
Of course, the examples cited do not resolve the issue of European political communication. Ursula von der Leyen, who is by no means lacking in initiative, is not the president of Europe and is, in principle, merely the executor of decisions made by a body known as the European Council. And from this perspective, the State of the European Union address—established in 2010 by an agreement between the European Parliament and the European Commission—is somewhat surprising if one seeks an analogy with the State of the Union address delivered each year by the President of the United States.
As long as Europe has been a “bridgehead for American power”4 and has behaved as such, the European Union’s political communication has been perfectly coherent and clear.
But in these crucial times we are living through—a period of reconfiguration in international relations—this policy is neither tenable nor acceptable. A default language cannot express the European project, which is a civilizational project insofar as it concerns values and not merely strategic alliances.
Let us therefore have the “cultural intelligence” to promote plurilingual European communication—that is, to restore national languages to their rightful place in communication, not to stoke nationalist rivalries, but to continue learning how to act and build together. This is to affirm the primacy of culture.
2 https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/08/23/le-discours-integral-de-mark-carney-contre-la-vassalisation-du-canada/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9TwlGYCBw
3 https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/09/17/mark-carney-et-la-nouvelle-alliance-transatlantique/?utm_source=lilo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ai_flash; https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rdi/premiere-ligne/site/videos/10762399/ecoutez-discours-mark-carney-devant-parlement-europeen
4 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, 1997, p. 106. G.W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, used similar language to indicate that NATO is a lever of influence for U.S. policy.