Éditorial / Editorial

This RIPLA/JAPL special issue, entitled Contexts and impact of/on French language acquisition in Sahel addresses a series of issues associated to complex multilingual situations in countries where French is traditionally the official language, the vehicular language of teaching or the main working language in State institutions, and, at the same time, it shares a communicative space with local languages having more common social functions. The issue focuses on Sahel, a part of the African continent bordering the Sahara desert, which is a strip with its own historical, geographical and anthropological characteristics, different from other African areas, such as the equatorial or the southern parts, or the Maghreb.