You may associate French with careers in high fashion, fine art, literature, and gourmet food, but French is also an excellent tool for careers in government, busi-ness, science, and technology~ The following examples demonstrate the broad range of opportunities available in French:

• In a recent listing of international jobs by the U.S. State Department (April 1997), 53 percent required or preferred French, 33 percent Spanish, 11 percent Russian, and 3 percent German. Other government agencies also seek employees with French language skills.

• Over 1,200 French companies in the U.S. employ nearly half a million Americans. Familiar U.S. manufacturers that are French-owned include Mack Trucks, Zenith, RCA-Thomson, Bic, American National Can Corporation, and Dannon.

• A recent Internet search (March 1999) of jobs requiring or preferring knowledge of French included titles such as product design engineer, programmer analyst, translator, marketing represen-tative, language instructor for the CIA, exchange program coordinator, and NT network administrator.

• France and the U.S. have long shared aerospace technology-French astronauts participate in U.S. space flights and France's Ariane rocket launches American satellites. France has the world's second largest aeronautics industry. In fact, all U.S. Coast Guard helicopters are made by Aerospatiale in Toulouse.

• Some prominent French inventions include: the smart card (with an embedded computer chip), the Minitel (an electronic telephone directory and online videotex network), fiber optics, and HDTV France's TGV is the world's fastest train at 322 mph.

• The French play a major international role in medicine and science. The greater Paris area has the highest concentration of mathematicians in the world; three French-trained physicists have won the Nobel Prize in the 1 990s; and the Human Genome Project is located in Paris.

• Even if your career doesn't directly involve French, it is likely that you will use it as a traveler. French is the offi-cial language of 33 countries and is widely spoken in at least 10 others. Paris is the site of many international conferences and conventions-in 1993, the number of conferences held in Paris set a world record. What's more, with nearly 70 million visitors last year, France is the number one tourist destination in the world.