The Institut Français is a French public industrial and commercial organization (EPIC). Started by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for promoting French culture around the world, it replaced the Culturesfrance project in 2011 with an expanded scope of work and increased resources (Decree No. 2010-1695 of 30 December 2010 in response to the law relating to the external scope of the State adopted on July 12, 2010).

Chaired by Denis Pietton who is assisted by Anne Tallineau, Deputy General manager, and Nicolas Gomez, Secretary General, the French Institute works closely with the French cultural network abroad consisting of more than 150 French and institutes nearly 1000 Alliance française around the world. The process of incorporating the cultural networks of a dozen diplomatic missions has been conducted from January 2011 to 2014 as an experiment: Cambodia, Chile, Denmark, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Georgia, Ghana, India, Kuwait, UK, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore and Syria (suspended due to the political situation in Syria.)

Institut français is located in Maxvorstadt, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

Coordinates: 48°08′50″N 11°34′59″E / 48.14722°N 11.58306°E / 48.14722; 11.58306

Institut français is a French-government funded industrial and commercial institution promoting French culture overseas.

It has numerous branches around the world, including -

Not to be confused with the languages school Alliance française.

Institut français may also refer to:

See also

French (le français [lə fʁɑ̃sɛ] or la langue française [la lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛz]) is a Romance language, belonging to the Indo-European family. It descended from the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, as did languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Catalan and others. French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, 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 the official language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie, the community of French-speaking countries. It is spoken as a first language in France, southern Belgium, western Switzerland, Monaco, certain parts of Canada and the United States, and by various communities elsewhere. As of 2015, 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania.