The second edition of the Festival des Accents will be held from April 9 to 11, 2026 in Marseille, in Bouches-du-Rhône. The opportunity to focus on the question of the politicization of accents, often used as a marker of legitimacy.
We keep in mind the discussions around “for shhure» by Emmanuel Macron, by Jean-Luc Mélenchon wondering whether we say “Trump” or “Trümp”, or the English of Melania Trump at the UN Security Council. In a globalized world, debates over national identities are intensifying and accent is becoming a key political marker. Between contested legitimacy and mechanisms of rejection, pronunciation reveals how language remains political.
Ways of speaking: a subject in politics
By studying the case of the municipal council of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), the phonetician Charlotte Kouklia showed how vocal expression made it possible to reveal dominance, hostility and expressiveness in the political debate. The accent can thus become the center of domination phenomena.
In France, the emphasis of politicians is scrutinized by the public sphere participating in these phenomena of domination. The international stature of Anne Hidalgo, former mayor of Paris, has often been called into question because of her so-called “French” accent when she speaks in English. This was particularly the case during the 2024 Olympic Games. In this, she joins a substantial list of French political figures who have received criticism, or compliments, on their accent in English.
The case of Emmanuel Macron is interesting in the sense that some commentators can criticize him for wanting to be too international and not French enough, or the opposite, depending on his degree of accent at the moment. At the same time, in 2021 in Marseille, we heard him pronounce a few words of his speech with a so-called “southern” accent which would testify to a desire for regional proximity. The “atypical” accent of public figures is often taken up by journalists in stories: that of Jean Castex, for example, was presented as a political rapprochement of Emmanuel Macron’s government with “the regions”.
It should be remembered that individuals have pluriphony – the ability of individuals to have a range of sounds in their repertoire – or can bring about phonological convergence – the ability to adapt in context to other ways of pronouncing. Also, ways of speaking are not stable. However, having accents in politics is not neutral.
Setting aside your opponents by their accent
During the 2012 presidential elections, the accent of Eva Joly, then the Franco-Norwegian candidate of the environmentalists, was attacked by the writer Patrick Besson in a pamphlet. He questioned his credibility in the highest national election by imitating his accent in writing and questioning his mastery of French. The candidate responded in a video promoting diversity, but the polarization over her linguistic skills linked to her legitimacy in the elections had already contaminated the public debate.
Some politicians like to imitate other people’s accents. This is the case of Donald Trump, who several times adopted a “French” accent when he reported Emmanuel Macron’s remarks during press conferences, and of Boris Johnson, who uses a distorted spelling of English in his memoirs in order to represent his perceived accent. “Foreigner”.
Sometimes, the accent can also become an excuse not to answer a disturbing question. Donald Trump thus regularly mentions the accent of journalists as posing a problem of understanding – whether the accent is Afghan or French. Jean-Luc Mélenchon had presented a similar strategy when confronting a journalist from a Toulouse branch of France 3. Donald Trump even does the same call for an interpreter to repeat what the Indian Prime Minister, although English-speaking, says.
Donald Trump is, in any case, not bothered by the accent of his First Lady, Melania Trump, with her so-called “Slovenian” accent. This “double standard” has not gone unnoticed by Internet users, who point out that not all so-called “foreign” accents have the same value in politics. This same President of the United States also claims that he would have been more easily elected president if he had had a British accent, referring to the supposed prestige of this variety.
However, during a press conference in 2025, pro-Trump Republican elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene described a question as illegitimate because of the journalist’s British nationality, a nationality identified by accent. The politician subsequently explained that she was willing to answer the question if it was asked by an American journalist, with an American accent.
More recently, an American citizen was arrested by ICE, the controversial US immigration police, because an officer had developed suspicions relating to his nationality based solely on his way of speaking, therefore his accent.
The emphasis is therefore involved in the construction and destruction of legitimacy in the public sphere.
Accents, délégitimation et déshumanisation
The emphasis is on questioning the legitimacy of an individual, whether it be asking a question to an elected official or being on American soil. The accent therefore functions as a weapon of othering, making it possible to highlight a difference in an individual, to position them as illegitimate but also as an enemy. Identifying potential enemies of the state through accent in this way is reminiscent of other dark periods in history.
The accent – or rather the ways of speaking – is a trace, a trace of life stories or journeys. It tells of contacts with other languages, other cultures, and more generally diversity and multiculturalism in a globalized world. The accent can also become a stigma to remind the other that he is a foreigner and make him understand his illegitimacy to have a place in society.
While discourses, sometimes reactionary or nationalist, oppose competing narratives, accent plays a key role: it makes it possible to define who belongs to a community or, on the contrary, to mark their exclusion. As the example of shibboleth (a phrase that can only be pronounced “correctly” by members of a group) shows, pronunciation can reveal membership in a social group. Thus, a simple accent or pronunciation can become a marker of exclusion. Recognizing these mechanisms helps prevent language from being used to discriminate rather than unite.
