Once they were French colonies, now they call back

These four towns with a sizeable French-literate population— Pondicherry, Mahe, Karaikal and Chandannagar—may soon boost India’s software and outsourcing business with at least 15 nations that speak, read and write French.

The former colonies may have been liberated decades ago, but exit treaties with France required India to continue with French learning in these centres. As a result, several public and private institutions still churn out hundreds of degree and diploma holders in French every year.

These home-grown French speakers are excellent candidates for the outsourcing industry, which is more than desperate for new markets. ‘‘These towns were known as France’s four ‘counters’ in India and many of the people there do learn French right from school. But the quality of spoken French appears to have slipped over the years, and efforts are being considered with industry to revive the quality,’’ says IT secretary K K Jaswal.

French, after all, is not spoken in France alone. In large and small economies ranging from Canada to Morocco and Haiti, French is either the official language or is spoken by a significant section of people.

Says Joel Ruet, a researcher with the French Cultural Centre in Delhi: ‘‘Companies—both French and Indian—now offer a variety of opportunities to French-speaking Indians in the software sector. Satyam, Wipro and other companies looking for opportunities in French BPOs have now started to have their own in-house French software translation units where Indians from the old colonies are hired,’’ he says. This is apart from the French energy companies like TotalFina and EDS that have come to India and hire those proficient in the language.

France imported software and electronics worth Rs 330 crore from India in 2003, Morocco, once a French protectorate, brought business worth Rs 1.37 crore and Mauritius imported around Rs 120 crore of software.

The Chief Secretary of Pondicherry, Dr R Padmanabhan, would only say the government “was doing a lot to tap the French-speaking resources for the IT sector.”

“There is a large opportunity for service exports to non-English speaking parts of the world and France is one of them,” say officials in the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council. As Sriram Subramnya, MD of Integra, a Pondicherry-based electronic book publishing firm says, ‘‘Currently, only around 2 per cent of our work is from France. In future, when markets open up, the French speaking skills of people will be an advantage to our location in Pondy.’’