According to the backgrounds of the main TNG characters, 3 are from Earth. Picard is from France, Riker is from Alaska, and LaForge is from somewhere in Africa.
That is a French accent in that century. The upper class Brits sound like Valley Girls.
Even better: there was reference during the series to the fact that one of Picard’s ancestors served at the Battle of Trafalgar. In the Nexus dream-Christmas scene in Generations, if you look carefully you can see there’s a painting of a guy who looks an awful lot like Jean-Luc in early-1800s naval uniform. British and French officers at the time wore nearly-identical uniforms… so it’s hard to say if Picard’s ancestor fought for Nelson or Napoleon! Behold: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/artoftrek/picard-trafalgar.jpg
Extra-canon sources specifically put the La Forges in what is now Mogadishu, Somalia, though the actual boundries of the African Confederation in which they lived are never made clear in fully canon sources.
FTR, Dr Crusher was from the moon (Copernicus City, to be specific), and Tasha Yar was from a planet called Turkana IV.
I wouldn’t bank on it. Look at how regional accents are disappearing before the onslaught of movies, TV, and radio. Sure, the French will hold out as long as they can, but even they will collapse between the pincer of English and Chinese.
Firefly had it right.
When I visited France in early 1980’s most English-speaking French people I encountered had accents closer to Britain than America - which makes some sense, what with the proximity of Britain. At least then, they tended to favor British English. I suppose Picard could be a bilingual Frenchman who learned British English as opposed to some other variety.
There really isn’t a lot of point in fanwanking the accent of someone living three centuries into the future. Accents don’t stay the same for that long; whatever French and British people sound like in 2309, it will not be what they sound like today.
He doesn’t. Stewart used a very neutral, middle-of-the-road Received Pronunciation accent for the role.
By TNG I don’t think French is an actively used language. I seem to remember a scence where they’re analysing something and Data makes refence to an old language, French. Picard then gets huffy as it was the “language of Civilization for centuries”. Given the assumption that the French start to use English as a primary language, it is unsurprising that they then come to sound English after a few generations.
Yes, it could be like Gaelic among the Irish today.
Or, we’re watching that whole episode in translation.
Heh. Just thinking of the British/French confusion, one episode even featured Picard well, a doppelganger patterned after him, anyway singing “Heart of Oak,” the march of the Royal Navy! 
Faster-than-light travel, transporter beams, holodecks, and telepathic bimbos in Danskins I can accept, but some things are just too far beyond the realm of possibility for me to suspend disbelief!
Yeah, I mean, c’mon! That’s just too far out there! 
Then there’s the whole “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” thingy. Someone of true French heritage would be drinking Orangina or a cafe creme, to my mind.
I remember reading somewhere that Patrick Stewart initially went to his audition for Jean-Luc Picard with a toupee, but was told to take it off because he looked like a “stodgy English weatherman”. No cite, but it makes for a fun story 
That tears it. Not French. Over two centuries and they’re still pissed about Trafalgar. I don’t see another three helping much.
Before American Dad I snobbilly hoped he was above that. Then I thought, “Well, anything for a buck.” Now, thanks to your link, I understand that British theatre geeks are just like American theater geeks, and are willing to do anything for a laugh.
Singing Gilbert & Sullivan didn’t help either.
Of course he was French, why else did he speak in such an outrageous accent?