This article compares French and Corsican middle school language policy. Above the micro-level of the classroom, and below the macro-level of the EU (or beyond), I analyze two policies sandwiched at the meso-level, national (France) and regional (Corsica) middle school curricula. Based on a content analysis of two curricular policy texts, the "Réforme du collège 2016" and the "Projet académique 2012-2016," I contrast the distinct notions of multilingualism constructed therein and the disparate teleological orientations to language teaching/learning that emerge, namely economic versus cultural. The Corsican middle school, subsumed within the French State curriculum, is characterized by the tension between competing language ideologies that coexist. The analysis reflects that, in the wider discourses on language and globalization, the shift in language teaching/learning from cultural to economic foci (Duchêne and Heller, in: Duchêne and Heller (eds) Language in late capitalism: pride and profit, Routledge, London, 2012; Romaine in Lang Policy 12:115-137, 2013) is not linear, finite, or complete. Telelogical orientations compete, overlap, and are co-present.