The opportunity to extend this status to some of the many idioms more used on a daily basis than that of the former colonizer has resurfaced cyclically since Mali, a vast mosaic of human groups, gained independence in 1960.
The question arose again with the presentation in October of a text which could become the new Constitution of the country.
Languages occupy only one of the 195 articles of this document presented by the military junta in power as one of the crucial reforms to save the country confronted with the spread of jihadism and a multitude of crises.
But this article has revived an old discussion on TV sets and at the "grin", an informal forum where Malians discuss everything over tea.
"Is it normal that, 60 years after independence, French is our only official language?" asks a Bamakois, Ali Guindo, in front of his residence in the Torokorobougou district of Bamako.
"We have many languages here in Mali, it would be good to anchor them in our official culture".
More than 70 languages are spoken in Mali, 13 have been recognized as national languages, and only one, exogenous, French, is official, recalls Amadou Salifou Guindo, specialist in sociolinguistics.
Back to school in front of a school in Bamako, January 25, 2021 NICOLAS REMENE AFP / Archives
French is used in the administration, on traffic signs, on state television, but very little in the street in Bamako, and even less in the bush.
The vernacular languages, spoken by millions of people for some, link communities rooted in their territories: Sonrhaï and Tamashek in the north, Fulfulde (Peul) in the center, Bamanankan (Bambara) in the south and in Bamako, the senoufo and the soninké even further south...
Identity question
The drafters of the draft constitution propose to raise their rank.
As in the 1992 Constitution, "French is the language of official expression", stipulates article 31. But local languages "are intended to become official languages".
The revived debate "shows that Malians want the Malian languages to occupy a greater place in the public sphere", assures the linguist Guindo.
Lesson in Bambara in a class in Bamako on November 10, 2022 - AFP
French is a colonial heritage as in much of West Africa, where very young populations are questioning the relationship with France.
Against the backdrop of abrupt breaks with the former dominant power since the advent of the military, a certain number of voices have seized on Article 31 to demand an end to French and, for example, to make bamanankan, the most used , the official language.
But more than the sovereignism in vogue, the debate pinches a sensitive identity cord.
Mali has already tried to make local languages the main languages of instruction in schools under the authoritarian regime of Moussa Traoré (1968-1991).
Patatras: for lack of state investment, these experimental schools have become "second-class schools" in the eyes of parents and teachers, deplores Ismaïla Samba Traoré, writer and publisher.
He wonders how we were able to "make such a revolutionary choice as to bring national languages into school and not provide the necessary means".
Vernacular languages are still taught, on a small scale.
At the faculty of languages in Bamako, Mahamadou Kounta, director of studies, gives Bamanankan lessons to about twenty students.
Subject of tension
"When our students go out, they will be able to write and read the national languages, they will in turn be able to work to perpetuate them", he assures us.
In his office at La Sahelian editions, Ismaïla Traoré also believes in it.
Since 1992, he has been one of the few to publish books in the local language.
Many books in the vernacular remain educational works commissioned by international NGOs.
Malian literature remains elitist.
And the publisher admits that new legislation will not be enough to change usage: "Some processes are not defined by a whim, you have to let the incubation take place".
As since the debate has been going on, the same questions have been asked about the practicability of using more oral than written languages in administrations or courts, or about the state's ability to reform a dilapidated education system.
A book in French and Bambara in a library in Bamako, November 9, 2022 - AFP
And the question of community sensitivities remains.
Admittedly, the authors of the draft constitution have adopted a "dynamic wording" to, underlines one of them on condition of anonymity, "to avoid any form of tension".
But the sociolinguist Guindo suggests that all those who speak Fulfulde, for example, are not necessarily ready to see the only Bamanankan of the Bamako elite made official.
The debate "shows that Malians are afraid that one official language will be imposed to the detriment of the others", he warns.
© 2022 AFP