Through the case of English language teaching policies, this article seeks to identify factors that would explain how the same change in public policy produces diverging outcomes in different national contexts. Combining public policy and political sociology approaches, it shows how in the case of transsectorial policy issues, the political system’s responsiveness to contradictory demands expressed by its publics may lead to the inefficiency of state action. Through the analysis of the limits of governing languages, the article thus raises the more general question of the link between democracy and public policy. The demonstration builds on a comparative framework replacing the French case in a European context before confronting it to the German case through a most similar research design.