I was asked what foreign language is the most useful, and given no more parameters (where? for what purpose?), my answer would be French. Whatever you think of France, the language is much less limited than
many people realise. As their empire spun o and they became a medium-sized power after the second world war, the French,hoping to maintain some distance from America and to make the most of their former possessions, established La Francophonie. This club, bringing together all the countries with a French-speaking heritage, has 56 members, almost a third of the world’s countries. Hardly any of them are places where French is everyone’s native language. Instead, they include countries with Francophone minorities (Switzerland, Belgium); those where French is social and widespread among elites (much of western Africa); those where
The Power of One Vote
In 2019 I had just moved to Boston and was voting in my first local City Council election. I went to forums and candidate…