The threat of franglais

What is clear, however, is that even if the French Academy does not see its task as being one of standardizing the French language, the public at large thinks it does, and cannot understand why it does not act to save the language from the incursions of the more modern menace, le franglais. [This is the term given to English loan words such as le weekend, le fast-food, le self-service that have been borrowed on a large scale in recent decades, and which are found (Flaitz 1982) to menace the very foundations of French culture.] As Catach points out (Catach 1991:55) with the abdication by the Academy of some of its duties, the tasks of controlling and standardizing things has in effect devolved upon a number of bodies--the state itself (the Premier, the Minister of Education) appoints commissions, who make reports to the Academy, which discusses them, etc. etc. Thus the body that has the highest public expectations of it, imbued as French linguistic culture is of the idea that language can be controlled from a central body, itself abjures any notion of control, even of something as mundane as spelling. The French state is forced to take action, creating councils, high commissions, which consult each other, make reports and recommentations, and seem to be following acceptable burocratized procedures. But the responsibility for various things is diffused, and for the public at large, the perception is that things are mired in red tape.