where is the number of french speakers increasing
Geographical distribution of French speakers According to a 2014 estimate by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, 274 million people worldwide can speak French, of which 212 million use the language daily, while the remaining 62 million have learnt it as a foreign language.[3] Despite a decline in the number of learners of French in Europe, the overall number of speakers is rising, largely because of its presence in high-fertility African countries: of the 212 million who use French daily, 54.7% are living in Africa.[3]
Indo-European languages There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, with over two thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch.[3] The most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, English, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, Russian, each with over 100 million speakers, with German, French, Italian, and Persian also having significant numbers. Today, about 46% of the human population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language, by far the highest of any language family.