Comment by martimoose

French has a governing body (l'Académie française) but, at least in some parts of the world, spoken french is very different from what is prescribed by the Académie. Plus the accents are so diverse, here in Québec we are 7 million people (and not all of them french speakers) and we have as much difference in the way we speak depending on the region as you have in the U.S. for example. Funny thing, when we visit France, the french sometimes answer us in english, because our accent is so thick that they think french is not our native language.