<i>Année</i> et <i>Journée européenne des langues</i>: célébration du plurilinguisme et légitimation de l'Europe

The aim of this article is to analyze and to problematize the emergence, organization and management of discursive and politico-ideological events such as the European Year of Languages and the European Day of Languages (EYL and EDL). From a sociolinguistic perspective and through Foucaldian discourse analysis approach, the study of these two intertwined events allows me to look at the way the Council of Europe, drawing on its historical and political vocation for achieving a greater unity among its members, maintains, manages and legitimates an image of Europe on the terrain of languages and plurilingualism. In particular, I argue that the EDL is an institutional and political construction that reproduces the Council of Europe's specific ideologies about languages and I show to what extent the EDL is a terrain for the annual legitimization, distribution and consumption of a particular image of Europe through the reproduction of an idealized image of plurilingualism that erases actual linguistic practices.