​The Geopolitical Importance of Paris

Many people have spoken about Paris being an exceptional place for a whole lot of different reasons, but Paris is, at this point in history, exceptional for a geopolitical reason which I have not heard mentioned by anyone else. It strikes me that Paris is the only capital of the former Western European imperial powers that still retains its role as the most important city in that linguistic empire.

What I mean by this is best demonstrated by example.

The Portuguese, Spanish, English and French all created globe spanning empires that left large parts of the world speaking their respective languages. If we look at these linguistic empires today, though, we find that all of the old European capitals have now been super-ceded in power by one of their former colonies.

For example:
The Portuguese speaking world is now definitely led by Brazil rather than Portugal. No one could doubt that Brazil with its 180 million people has more sway in today’s world than tiny Portugal. Lisbon is no longer the centre of the Portuguese speaking world. That honour must go to either Brasilia, the capital of Brasil, or Sao Paulo the largest city of Brasil and one that boasts a population larger than the entire country of Portugal.

The English speaking world is also no longer led from its former colonial capital of London. Although London is certainly still a city of global significance, there is no doubt that the USA is the current leader of the English speaking world and that either Washington, its capital, or New York, its largest city, are the epicentres of power for the English speaking world.

In the Spanish speaking world the Megacity of Mexico City, presiding over a nation of 150 million people, now has more sway in the world than its former colonial master, Madrid. Admittedly, the power gap between Mexico City and Madrid is not as great as in our other two examples, but as Mexico can be expected to continue to increase its economic power through the century Mexico City will pull further ahead.

Compared with all of these examples of imperial European capitals being overtaken by colonial heirs Paris is exceptional. Not only is Paris still the most important city of a French speaking world that numbers 29 countries where French is an official national language, but there is no other city that even comes close.

As an aside, I am aware that some might ask what about the Dutch empire, isn’t Amsterdam still the biggest Dutch speaking city? My answer to that would be that although the Dutch did rule over a very extensive empire in the past, Dutch is no longer an official language of any of the countries which now occupy that space with the exception of the small country of Surinam and the even smaller island of Aruba, consequently the vast majority of Dutch speakers still live in Europe and that outside of Europe there is not much of a Dutch speaking world to speak of, certainly not on the scale of the legacy of the maritime empires mentioned above.

So, apart from being an interesting historical fact, what is the geopolitical significance of Paris still being the pre-eminent French speaking city?

The significance lies in the fact that a large part of the world still looks to France and Paris for much of its cultural imports. Many countries throughout Africa, the Pacific and other corners of the former French empire are watching French news channels, reading French magazines and following the moods and fashions of metropolitan France. This gives France a great deal of ‘soft power’ in these regions of the world. And, just as the influence of the USA does not come just from its superior military (hard power) but also from the fact that teenagers around the world are listening to American music, watching American movies, consuming American products and dreaming of immigrating, the influence of ‘soft power’ should not be under estimated. Because of the fact that France is still at the centre of the French speaking world the cultural output of Paris is still molding the values and aspirations of the citizens of many nations beyond its borders and that is a powerful force.
 
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As a footnote I am also aware that many will say that Moscow is still the capital of the Russian speaking world, and that is in many senses a vast empire. All of which is true, but Moscow is the centre of a land empire built by conquering neighbours and that is a different sort of empire to that established by the Western European Atlantic Powers.