Thomas Pesquet chose an excerpt from Marguerite Duras’ work “Un barrage contre le Pacifique” for Dictate the space he drives on Sunday. The French astronaut will read his text From the International Space Station400 km away from Earth while several hundred people will follow this spell Outdoors at the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget.

Opportunity for Thomas Pesquet to highlight it To what extent language proficiency remains an obstacle? for some people, “I realized that this was a very French thing. There are a lot of languages ​​that don’t make sense of spelling because the words are written exactly the same way they are. There is no spelling accuracy like we have in French.”

We made it complicated, on purpose, to be a sign of education – Thomas Bisquet

“When we put language on paper, oral language, we made it complex, on purpose, so that it was a sign of education. And it remained a social sign, perhaps one day, that a reform must be made to make language a little simpler, in fact, so that learning abroad becomes suddenly easier, so that It spreads a little better.” Astronaut suggests.

The dictation will be broadcast at 3 p.m. After reading Thomas Bisquet, Rashid Santake will do one in turn, at a slower rate, before a self-correcting session. You can listen to it again on Saturday 11th September at 5pm during Broadcast dictation on France Culture . antenna.