[eonwe]

This is only partially related, but I remember watching the news in the nineties and being dumbstruck on how Académie française policed the usage of language in public life. It was probably about use of Anglicisms in television or by politicians.

I forgot about it for years until I learned from Wikipedia that that wasn't just a reaaction against Internet, but a policy that has been going on for centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha

So the mandarinisation doesn't seem that odd against such a background. The similar effort bore fruit in France as I think now virtually all people in France speak Parisian French compared to 12% or so at the advent of French Revolution and the following policies.

[bitwize]

I learned about the Académie Française in French class (1990 or so). I thought they were guarding against anglicisms creeping in through teen slang -- "c'est too much" and that.

[macavity23]

Also through vocabulary. 'Le weekend' (vs 'la fin de semaine') is the classic example, both of what l'academie does and how utterly (though heroically) doomed its efforts are.