The French Connection - where anglophones fear to tread?

I arrived in Cambodia, the old heart of colonial French Indochina, having previously spent the summer volunteering in Rwanda, on the edge of Franophone West Africa - an enticing prospect for a confessed Francophile.

Despite the inexorable march of the English language, there’s a fair number of countries who still speak French. Might this be my chance to rush in where Anglophones fear to tread?

Well, no. Cambodia, sadly (like Rwanda), is no longer a Francophone country. In fact I’ve had to try very hard to find any French connections to speak of here.

Certainly in terms of language, French is all but dead, whilst English is boringly ubiquitous. You can buy the Cambodge Soir in Phnom Penh (but hardly anywhere else), and there are still a few old blokes who can speak a bit, but they too are dying out. Phnom Penh even boasts a stylish and generously-funded French Cultural Centre – but with a notable lack of Cambodians grasping for the pristine Molière texts.

Part of the demise can be attributed to the Khmer Rouge, whose Paris-educated cadre later equated French with bourgeois thinking and brutally killed many of those who revealed they could speak the language.

But that doesn’t really explain it – there are plenty of opportunities for the new generations to learn French as well as English. The fact is that all the younger generation – and I really mean pretty much all of them – want to learn English, and have no interest whatsoever in French. English is seen as the way to get a good job, earn money, get on. French is simply irrelevant here.

So what’s left? Well if you look hard there are a few remnants. Phnom Penh and maybe a few bits of Battambang have some attractive French colonial-style buildings with shutters and balconies, connected by pleasantly shaded boulevards.

The government and administrative structures also owe something to the colonial heritage here, with communes, gendarmeries and the like. And when the leader of the main opposition party recently went into self-imposed exile he chose France as his destination – surely that counts for something?

There are a number of active francophone charities– there is an local branch of the social organisation Enfants du Mékong in the village next to mine, and my hospital was originally established by Médecins Sans Fronitères. In fact many doctors go to France to train, making healthcare one of the few areas where the language retains some relevance.

These few souvenirs of Frenchness are occasionally reflected in the Khmer language, which borrows words in those areas– carotte, café in food; pharmacie, antibiotique in medicine; gendarmerie, poste de police in administration.

And as you might expect there’s at least a whiff of crushed gallic in the cuisine –the Cambodian staple food is definitely rice, but pang - sweet, airy versions of baguettes - are available in most towns. There are a few fancy pansy French restaurants in Phnom Penh. Onions are called ptum barraing (barraing meaning ‘French’ in k’mai). Not the most extensive menu I confess.

Ah, but the French are still big in business here, stressed a rather hopeful young French guy I met on the bus the other week. And it's true that the airports and oil firms like Total are French-owned, and the restaurant / wine, clothing and pharmaceutical industries have strong ties. But according to the Cambodia Daily, French investment here was just under $20m in the last few years, with China a whopping 30 times greater! ($19m compared with $594m for 2001-2005).

So I conclude that there is no longer a significant French influence here. But does it matter?

Yes, according to the incomparable Madame Sonia von Breitenstein, a fascinating Parisienne with whom I shared numerous banana beers back in Rwanda. Her view is that there is something intrinsically cultured and civilised about the French language, which is simply not there in our prosaic English. Importantly, this in turn had a civilising influence on those who speak it. So in short, much of the lack of ‘culture’ I bemoan in today’s Cambodia is because they don’t speak French here any more.

Quel dommage?