History of French and is a lingua franca in some regions, notably in Africa. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (Southeast Asia), while the language has changed to creoles, dialects or pidgins in the French departments in the West Indies, even though people there are still educated in standard French. On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French speakers has increased, especially in Africa. In the Canadian province of Quebec, different laws have promoted the
Charter of the French Language notwithstanding clause, ruled that in fact any sign law was a violation of the freedom of expression right. Aside from the civil rights infringement, the Charter has faced legal challenges because the restricted education opportunities have hindered not only unilingual but bilingual anglophones' employment. Although the Charter made French the official language of government and civil administration, the same cannot be said of the private sector. Despite nearly 30 years of the Charter, it has never been applied as rigorously as intended because to do so would violate civil liberties. English is still often made a requirement by employers in