The paper is devoted to an examination of the relation between Creole languages and French in history and in contemporary France. Creole languages have suffered from a process of minorization in the French Kingdom and later in the French Republic. They have been twice discovered. First, they have been named and have acquired an orthography some fifty years after the first mention of their existence, in the French colonies. Later, during the nineteenth century, linguistics has become interested in these linguistic entities because of the then ongoing discussion on language mixing. Viewed as a low variety within colonial diglossia, French creole languages have gained a new status within the French Republic because of a change in attitude of the elite towards minority languages and through the expertise of its activists. Ignored during a long period, the status of creole languages in French schools have evolved towards a better integration at school. The case of French Creole languages provides a good vantage point to assess French language Policy.