thumb|A man from [[Labé, Guinea, speaking Pular and West African French]]
African French () is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or lingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 167 million people across 34 countries and territories, some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 18 sovereign states recognize it as an official de jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority. the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the urban areas of Douala, Yaoundé in Cameroon, in Libreville, Gabon, and Antananarivo.<br />
In some countries, though not having official de jure status, it is a first language among a small social classes of the population, such as in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania, where French is a first language among the upper classes along with Arabic (many people in the upper classes are simultaneous bilinguals in Arabic/French), but only a second language among the general population.
In each of the Francophone African countries, French is spoken with local variations in pronunciation and vocabulary.
List of countries in Africa by French proficiency
French proficiency in African countries according to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Countries
! Total population
! French speaking population
! Percentage of the population that speaks French
! Year
|-
|align=left|
| 47,435,000
| 15,589,000
| 32.86%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 14,814,000
| 4,992,000
| 33.7%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 24,075,000
| 5,499,000
| 22.84%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 14,390,000
| 1,250,000
| 8.68%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
| 527,000
| 52,000
| 10.83%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 29,879,000
| 12,267,000
| 41.06%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 5,513,000
| 1,345,000
| 24.39%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 21,004,000
| 2,693,000
| 12.82%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 883,000
| 333,000
| 37.73%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 6,484,000
| 3,981,000
| 61.4%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 32,712,000
| 11,913,000
| 36.42%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 1,184,000
| 592,000
| 50%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 112,832,000
| 57,196,000
| 50.69%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
| 118,366,000
| 3,573,000
| 3.02%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
| 1,938,000
| 560,000
| 28.91%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 2,593,000
| 1,719,000
| 66.3%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
| 2,822,000
| 564,000
| 20.00%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
| 35,064,000
| 645,000
| 1.84%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 15,100,000
| 4,202,000
| 27.83%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
|-
|align=left|
| 32,741,000
| 8,705,000
| 26.59%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 25,199,000
| 5,028,000
| 19.95%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 5,315,000
| 689,000
| 12.96%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 1,268,000
| 921,000
| 72.65%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 38,431,000
| 13,912,000
| 36.2%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 27,918,000
| 3,754,000
| 13.45%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 14,569,000
| 748,000
| 5.14%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|'
|-
|align=left|
| 18,932,000
| 5,250,000
| 27.73%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 133,000
| 70,000
| 53.00%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 9,722,000
| 3,998,000
| 41.12%
| 2025
|-
|align=left|
| 12,349,000
| 6,558,000
| 53.11%
| 2025
|}
Status
Official status
{| class="wikitable"
!Country
!Notes
|-
|Benin
|Sole official
|-
|Congo, Democratic Republic of
|Sole official
|-
|Congo, Republic of
|Sole official
|-
|Gabon
|Sole official
|-
|Guinea
|Sole official
|-
|Ivory Coast
|Sole official
|-
|Senegal
|Sole official
|-
|Togo
|Sole official
|-
|Burundi
|Co-official with Kirundi, English
|-
|Cameroon
|Co-official with English
|-
|Chad
|Co-official with Arabic
|-
|Central African Republic
|Co-official with Sango
|-
|Comoros
|Co-official with Comorian, Arabic
|-
|Djibouti
|Co-official with Arabic
|-
|Equatorial Guinea
|Co-official with Spanish, Portuguese
|-
|Madagascar
|Co-official with Malagasy
|-
|Rwanda
|Co-official with Kinyarwanda, English, Swahili
|-
|Seychelles
|Co-official with English, Seychellois Creole
|}
Non-official but often administrative or cultural
{| class="wikitable"
!Country
!Official languages
!Usage of French
|-
|Algeria
|Arabic
|Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational
|-
|Burkina Faso
|Mooré, Dyula, Fula
|Working language. Removed as an official language in 2024
|-
|Mali
|Bambara, Bobo, Hassaniya Arabic, Bozo, Dogon, Toro So, Fula, Kassonke, Maninke, Minyanka,Senufo, Senara, Songhay, Koyraboro Senni, Soninke, Tamasheq
|Working language, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2023
|-
|Mauritania
|Arabic
|Used in the media, business, and among educated classes
|-
|Mauritius
|None de jure
|De facto official with English, used in government administration, courts, and business
|-
|Morocco
|Arabic, Tamazight
|Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational
|-
|Niger
|Hausa
|Administrative, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2025
|-
|Tunisia
|Arabic
|Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational
|}
Varieties
There are many different varieties of African French, but they can be broadly grouped into five categories:
- The French variety spoken in Central Africa and West Africa including Angola with French ancestry or French residents who speak French especially in Cabinda – spoken altogether by about 97 million people in 2018, as either a first or second language.
The omnipresence of local languages in Francophone African countries – along with insufficiencies in education – has given birth to a new linguistic concept: le petit français. Le petit français is the result of a superposition of the structure of a local language with a narrowed lexical knowledge of French. The specific structures, though very different, are juxtaposed, marking the beginning of the creolization process.
Some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to remove the use of French; it was removed as an official language in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in 2023, 2024, and 2025 respectively.
Français populaire africain
In the urban areas of Francophone Africa, another type of French has emerged: Français populaire africain ("Popular African French") or FPA. It is used in the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa, but especially in cities such as Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; Cotonou, Benin; Dakar, Senegal; Lomé, Togo; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. At its emergence, it was marginalized and associated with the ghetto; Angèle Bassolé-Ouedraogo describes the reaction of the scholars: