yvanspijk, French 'il est' (he is) comes from Latin 'esse' (to be), whereas il était (he was) comes from 'stāre' (to stand; to stay).
In languages such as Spanish, the descendants of 'esse' and 'stāre' both came to mean "to be", but they remained separate verbs with their own functions: 'ser' is used to describe essences while 'estar' denotes states.
Old French had a counterpart to each of these two verbs - 'estre' vs 'ester' - but they merged before a meaning difference could crystallise.
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