European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was only joking when he said the English language was on the way out in Europe due to Brexit, he said on Friday.

“Slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe,” Juncker told a conference in Florence in May, speaking in English before then switching to French and drawing applause from his audience.

Asked on Friday at conference #FutureofEuorpe  if French would indeed be the future language of Europe, Juncker said in English: “It’s always dangerous to make jokes about that.”

“I gave a speech in Florence in May and I was saying as English is slowly disappearing from Europe I will express myself in French. The French were happy. The British – I had a shitstorm coming from the other side of the Channel,” he told students in his native Luxembourg.