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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

French PM bans ministers from using female-friendly writing

French PM Edouard Philippe has struck a blow against moves towards making French grammar and writing less macho by banning gender equal words from official government texts.

Published: 21 November 2017 13:22 CET
French PM bans ministers from using female-friendly writing
Photo: AFP

The French government has made it clear what it thinks of so-called “inclusive writing”, an attempt to make French grammar more gender equal and less macho by putting the feminine AND masculine forms of nouns in the text.

French Prime Mininister Edouard Philippe has waded into the row over inclusive writing for the first time and made it clear where the government stands by telling ministers he doesn't want to see it in official texts.

“State administrations must comply with grammatical and syntactic rules, especially for reasons of intelligibility and clarity,” said Philippe to justify his decision.

His intervention echoed that of one his predecessors Jean-Marc Ayrault who famously told his ministers to stop using English.

A move towards “inclusive writing” has been dominating headlines in France recently ever since the Academie Francais – the guardians of the French – issued a “solemn warning” stating that moves to make French less sexist were an “aberration”.

Supporters say its aim is to promote gender equality and reduce sexist stereotypes and to “make women more visible” in texts. They want to alter the grammar rule in French that says “masculine form must prevail over feminine form”.
 
But the Academie said it puts the French language “in mortal danger for which our nation will be accountable to future generations.”
 
READ ALSO:
 
OPINION: 'The French language isn't sexist, it's the people who speak it'
Photo: AFP 
 
Previously texts in French have only included the masculine form of nouns for example citoyen (citizen) consommateurs (consumers) or agriculteurs (farmers) but if inclusive writing was used then the words have to be written as follows to include the feminine and plural forms: citoyen.ne.s, consommateur.rice.s, agriculteur.rice.s.
 
Other examples include “acteur.rice.s (actor/actress), ingénieur.e.s (engineer) and directeur.rice.s (directors).
 
Inclusive writing also encourages avoiding the word man, where possible, or just simply adding “and women” where appropriate.
 
The current controversy around inclusive writing was kicked off by the publishers Hatier who chose to rewrite a school text book using the gender equal grammatical forms.
 
But for the Academie Francaise it is already difficult to acquire a language without adding all the new forms on the end of words, the guardians say, adding that future generations would be put off written French if these changes become commonly used.
 
Philippe also instructed his ministers ministers to ensure that the traditional form be used in all public services under their authority.
 
The prime minister's office told AFP that the memo aimed to “end the controversy” but assured that the government was still “resolutely committed to strengthening equality between women and men.”
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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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