The rise and fall of French in a context of art and immigration

This article presents the results of a study on the value of the French language and culture for Moroccan artists working and living in New York, a dynamic, competitive, multilingual, and multicultural city. In this environment, these artists must promote their arts, which rely on originality, contacts, and branding. This empirical study examines the role and value for these Moroccan artists of the French language, a language with a complex status in Morocco due to its colonial past, its position as the first foreign language learned in schools, and its wide presence in administrative fields, which have given it a privileged status in Morocco. For these Moroccan artists who emigrated to the United States, the French language also becomes a mobile product transported in suitcases from Morocco to New York where its value will be tested.