Louisiana families demand a French education for their children. There’s a waiting list at all 29 of the state’s public French immersion programs. Louisiana has somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 French speakers. Roughly 50,000 of Louisiana’s public school students are learning French as a second language, and 3,500 students are in French immersion programs. French is spoken in more than 30 countries across the globe, and it is the official language of the United Nations.