10 Star Trek Questions That Always Confused You
3. Picard's French Accent Is A Bit Interesting
The character of Jean-Luc Picard was born in La Barre, France. While his French nationality comes into a play in Star Trek: Picard slightly more than it does in Star Trek: The Next Generation, his speaking voice was decidedly not French-accented. That is, of course, because one does not make Sir Patrick Stewart alter his voice if one can help it.
During the casting process, Stewart was taped attempting a slight French lilt to his voice, though he and everybody else felt that it sounded ridiculous. It wasn't the French accent itself that was the problem - it was Stewart. The episode Stardust City Rag is a good indicator of what he would have sounded like for the duration of The Next Generation and all can agree that this would not have worked.
So, rather than drop this aspect of the character altogether, his accent was quietly ignored, with his French heritage remaining firmly in place. Jean-Luc and Robert were the sons of Maurice and Yvette Picard, the family owned a vineyard and he was the first of them to blast off into space. He defended the French language when he could, including an incident when Data described it as a 'dead' language.