French language there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across five different continents, most of which are members of the "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie" (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France, Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions, Belgium (Wallonia and the
French language in Algeria lingua franca. The PCGN stated "official attitudes towards both Berber and French have been largely negative". In spite of its widespread use of French, Algeria has not joined the "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", an international organization of French-speaking countries. The choice of language of Algerian leaders in public reflects their language policy: Houari Boumédiène, second president of Algeria from 1965 to 1978, was strongly against French and never used it publicly. Chadli Bendjedid, third president of the country, used only classical Arabic in his speeches, as did Liamine Zéroual. Other political leaders, such as Mohamed Boudiaf and the current