African French () is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or lingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 167 million people across 34 countries and territories,29 full members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF): Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DR Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Togo, and Tunisia. One associate member of the OIF: Ghana.One observer of the OIF: Mozambique.One country not member or observer of the OIF: Algeria.Two French territories in Africa: Réunion and Mayotte. some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 18 sovereign states recognize it as an official de jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority. According to Ethnologue, only 1.2 million people spoke it as a first language. African French speakers represent 47% of the Francophonie, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world.
In Africa, French is often spoken as a second language alongside the Indigenous ones, but in a small number of urban areas (in particular in Central Africa and in the ports located on the Gulf of Guinea) it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, Le français à Abidjan : Pour une approche syntaxique du non-standard by Katja Ploog, CNRS Editions, Paris, 2002 the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the urban areas of Douala, Yaoundé in Cameroon, in Libreville, Gabon, and Antananarivo.
In some countries, though not having official de jure status, it is a first language among a small social classes of the population, such as in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania, where French is a first language among the upper classes along with Arabic (many people in the upper classes are simultaneous bilinguals in Arabic/French), but only a second language among the general population.
In each of the Francophone African countries, French is spoken with local variations in pronunciation and vocabulary.
List of countries in Africa by French proficiency French proficiency in African countries according to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
Countries Total population French speaking population Percentage of the population that speaks French Year 47,435,000 15,589,000 32.86% 2025 14,814,000 4,992,000 33.7% 2025 24,075,000 5,499,000 22.84% 2025 14,390,000 1,250,000 8.68% 2025 527,000 52,000 10.83% 2025 29,879,000 12,267,000 41.06% 2025 5,513,000 1,345,000 24.39% 2025 21,004,000 2,693,000 12.82% 2025 883,000 333,000 37.73% 2025 6,484,000 3,981,000 61.4% 2025 32,712,000 11,913,000 36.42% 2025 1,184,000 592,000 50% 2025 112,832,000 57,196,000 50.69% 2025 118,366,000 3,573,000 3.02% 2025 1,938,000 560,000 28.91% 2025 2,593,000 1,719,000 66.3% 2025 2,822,000 564,000 20.00% 2025 35,064,000 645,000 1.84% 2025 15,100,000 4,202,000 27.83% 2025 32,741,000 8,705,000 26.59% 2025 25,199,000 5,028,000 19.95% 2025 5,315,000 689,000 12.96% 2025 1,268,000 921,000 72.65% 2025 38,431,000 13,912,000 36.2% 2025 27,918,000 3,754,000 13.45% 2025 14,569,000 748,000 5.14% 2025 18,932,000 5,250,000 27.73% 2025 133,000 70,000 53.00% 2025 9,722,000 3,998,000 41.12% 2025 12,349,000 6,558,000 53.11% 2025
Status Official status CountryNotesBeninSole officialCongo, Democratic Republic ofSole officialCongo, Republic of Sole officialGabonSole officialGuineaSole officialIvory CoastSole officialSenegalSole officialTogoSole officialBurundiCo-official with Kirundi, EnglishCameroonCo-official with EnglishChadCo-official with ArabicCentral African RepublicCo-official with SangoComorosCo-official with Comorian, ArabicDjiboutiCo-official with ArabicEquatorial GuineaCo-official with Spanish, PortugueseMadagascarCo-official with MalagasyRwandaCo-official with Kinyarwanda, English, SwahiliSeychellesCo-official with English, Seychellois Creole
Non-official but often administrative or cultural CountryOfficial languagesUsage of FrenchAlgeriaArabic, Algerian Tamazight Administrative, commercial, cultural, educationalBurkina FasoMooré, Dyula, FulaWorking language. Removed as an official language in 2024MaliBambara, Bobo, Hassaniya Arabic, Bozo, Dogon, Toro So, Fula, Kassonke, Maninke, Minyanka,Senufo, Senara, Songhay, Koyraboro Senni, Soninke, TamasheqWorking language, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2023MauritaniaArabicUsed in the media, business, and among educated classesMauritiusNone de jureDe facto official with English, used in government administration, courts, and businessMoroccoArabic, Moroccan TamazightAdministrative, commercial, cultural, educationalNigerHausaAdministrative, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2025TunisiaArabicAdministrative, commercial, cultural, educational
Varieties
There are many different varieties of African French, but they can be broadly grouped into five categories:
The French variety spoken in Central Africa and West Africa including Angola with French ancestry or French residents who speak French especially in Cabinda – spoken altogether by about 97 million people in 2018, as either a first or second language. The French variety spoken by Berbers and Maghrebis in North-west Africa (see Maghreb French), which has about 33 million first and second language speakers in 2018. The French variety spoken in the Comoro Islands (the Comoros and Mayotte) and Madagascar, which have 5.6 million first and second language speakers in 2018. The French variety spoken by Creoles in the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius and Réunion) and Seychelles, which has around 1.75 million first and second language speakers in 2018. The French spoken in this region is not to be confused with the French-based creole languages, which are also spoken in the area. The French variety spoken in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, which has about 0.5 million first and second language speakers in 2018.
All the African French varieties differ from Standard French, both in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, but the formal African French used in education, media and legal documents is based on standard French vocabulary.
In the colonial period, a vernacular form of creole French known as Petit nègre ("little negro") was also present in West Africa. The term has since, however, become a pejorative term for "poorly spoken" African French.
In Angola, French is spoken in Angola especially Cabinda, particularly in the northern regions. While Portuguese is the official language, French is understood and spoken, especially among the Kongo people in the north and by Angolans with French ancestry. It's also one of the foreign languages taught in schools with 90% speak French from neighboring DR Congo as a legacy of Belgian colonial rule which established as Belgium's private colony of Francophone Africa until its independence on 30 June 1960.
Code-switching, or the alternation of languages within a single conversation, takes place in both DR Congo and Senegal, the former having four "national" languages – Ciluba, Kikongo, Lingala, and Swahili – which are in a permanent opposition to French. Code-switching has been studied since colonial times by different institutions of linguistics. One of these, located in Dakar, Senegal, already spoke of the creolization of French in 1968, naming the result "franlof": a mix of French and Wolof (the language most spoken in Senegal) which spreads by its use in urban areas and through schools, where teachers often speak Wolof in the classroom despite official instructions.
The omnipresence of local languages in Francophone African countries – along with insufficiencies in education – has given birth to a new linguistic concept: le petit français. Le petit français is the result of a superposition of the structure of a local language with a narrowed lexical knowledge of French. The specific structures, though very different, are juxtaposed, marking the beginning of the creolization process.
Some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to remove the use of French; it was removed as an official language in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in 2023, 2024, and 2025 respectively.
Français populaire africain In the urban areas of Francophone Africa, another type of French has emerged: Français populaire africain ("Popular African French") or FPA. It is used in the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa, but especially in cities such as Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; Cotonou, Benin; Dakar, Senegal; Lomé, Togo; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. At its emergence, it was marginalized and associated with the ghetto; Angèle Bassolé-Ouedraogo describes the reaction of the scholars:
However, FPA has begun to emerge as a second language among the upper class. It has also become a symbol of social acceptance.
FPA can be seen as a progressive evolution of Ivorian French. After diffusing out of Côte d'Ivoire, it became Africanized under the influence of young Africans (often students) and cinema, drama, and dance.
FPA has its own grammatical rules and lexicon. For example, "" or "" can either mean "This person annoys me very much (literally he or she is annoying me to death)" or "I'm dying (out of love) for him/her" depending on the circumstances. "" signifies a feeling of exasperation (whereupon it actually means "he or she starts to appeal to me"), and friendship can be expressed with "" or ""
FPA is mainly composed of metaphors and images taken from African languages. For example, the upper social class is called "" (the above from above) or "" (the powerful môgôs).
Pronunciation Pronunciation in the many varieties of African French can be quite varied. There are nonetheless some trends among African French speakers; for instance, tends to be pronounced as the historic alveolar trill of pre-20th Century French instead of the now standard uvular trill or 'guttural R.' The voiced velar fricative, the sound represented by in the Arabic word , is another common alternative. Pronunciation of the letters , , and may also vary, and intonation may differ from standard French.
Abidjan French
According to some estimates, French is spoken by 75 to 99 percent of Abidjan's population, either alone or alongside indigenous African languages. There are three sorts of French spoken in Abidjan. A formal French is spoken by the educated classes. Most of the population, however, speaks a colloquial form of French known as français de Treichville (after a working-class district of Abidjan) or français de Moussa (after a character in chronicles published by the magazine Ivoire Dimanche which are written in this colloquial Abidjan French). Finally, an Abidjan French slang called Nouchi has evolved from an ethnically neutral lingua franca among uneducated youth into a creole language with a distinct grammar. New words often appear in Nouchi and then make their way into colloquial Abidjan French after some time. As of 2012, a crowdsourced dictionary of Nouchi was being written using mobile phones.
Here are some examples of words used in the African French variety spoken in Abidjan (the spelling used here conforms to French orthography, except ô which is pronounced ): is a slang word meaning a girl or a girlfriend. It is a loanword either from the Mandinka language or from English ("girl"). It is also French hip-hop slang for a girl. is a colloquial word meaning a street-side eatery, a working-class restaurant serving African food (likely from French “”). is a slang word equivalent to "bloke" or "dude" in English. It is a loanword from the Mandinka language.