Is English the Scourge of French?

The Académie vs. Anglicisms

The Lone Ranger

"French denounce rise of English words in public life"

Headlines like this crop up with predictable regularity, reporting on France’s latest efforts to purge Anglicisms from daily life. These portrayals follow a familiar script yet barely scratch the surface of the full story.

All the usual suspects get a mention:

• Purists condemn the proliferation of words like email, hashtag, and le weekend.

• English in advertising is common but still earns a slap on the wrist.

• Institutions push clunky French alternatives, but they often feel forced and fail to catch on.

This resistance is often framed as both futile and parochial, setting it against the rising tide of English-language dominance. To some, the spread of English is a natural and convenient by-product of global networks. In France, however, authorities remain prickly about what they perceive as the creeping advance of Anglocentrism.

So, who’s actually speaking for the French people?

The answer is the Académie Française, France's appointed gatekeeper of linguistic standards. For nearly 400 years it has been spearheading efforts to safeguard and refine the French language. It publishes its own dictionary and positions itself against the influx of foreign terms (known as loan words), particularly those coming from English.

But is the French language really under siege? Will the people revolt en masse, à la 1789? Or is the Académie a lone ranger in its crusade against loan words?

Let’s find out.

It’s English, but not as we know it

Spend time among French speakers and you’ll notice that their tolerance for foreign words is remarkably high. Yet there’s a distinction between ‘mature’ loan words and the new kids on the block.

Before going any further, it’s worth understanding the contexts from which these words emerge.

Loan words in the traditional sense are fully integrated anglicisms that were ‘naturalised’ into French decades ago. They’ve usually been infused with a dash of French flair, so today they only loosely resemble their English cousins.

Un brushing (a blow-dry) comes within a hair's breadth, whereas un shooting (a photo shoot) is a bit wide of the mark. Then there's the delightful un relooking (a makeover), the snazzy un smoking (a tuxedo), and one of my personal favourites, the classy un gentleman.

These enjoy near universal acceptance across generations and social classes. To use them feels entirely natural and they’re unlikely to elicit even so much as a Gallic shrug.

Friend or faux?

Then we come to what’s endearingly referred to as franglais, or more rigorously, anglicismes bruts (raw anglicisms). These slang words have yet to be fully assimilated and tend to be used informally, particularly by younger generations influenced by American media, tech and popular culture.

Instantly recognisable words like cringe (embarrassing), ghoster (to cut contact with someone) and un spoiler (revelation of a plot) are incorporated without adaptation of their meaning. Think of it as English with a French accent.

Others undergo quirky alterations like la loose, which describes a failure or general misfortune (c'est vraiment la loose !). It's borrowed from lose and has the same pronunciation, but it picked up an erroneous o, reassuring me that my own childhood spelling struggles were far from uncommon.

These lexical tourists come and go, sometimes fading as quickly as they emerge when fashions move on. They might be frowned upon, or bemuse older generations, and aren’t yet fundamentally French. It will be interesting to see if some eventually become broadly accepted.

You're welcome!

Globalisation fuels these unrefined imports that sprout from domains where English dominates, such as business, leisure, entertainment and advertising. You’re far less likely to encounter them in public and institutional sectors that are naturally more resistant to outside influence.

In my experience, the alleged ubiquity of these words is wildly exaggerated. If you think you can get by in France on franglais alone, here’s un spoiler: you can’t!

Language orphans

A third set of words occupies a linguistic no-man’s-land, challenging the axiom that languages are tied to nation-states. In a hyper-connected world, they function as international jargon, reducing friction in global communication. Floating in a stateless limbo, their primary identity is disciplinary rather than national.

Specialised terms like internet, blockchain, fast food and networking increasingly transcend territorial boundaries. Treating these words as belonging to the globalised domains from which they originate instead of imports can alleviate the pressure to come up with suitable translations.

This supports the idea that the dominance of English is driven less by linguistic imperialism and more by pragmatism, blurring the lines between what we traditionally think of as English and what has come to be known as Globish.

Interestingly, the French have also coined their own neologisms that draw on international influences. Take for example un internaute, which refers to an internet user (as opposed to, presumably, a non-user!).

Despite its comically quaint, almost retro charm that’s reminiscent of a bygone era when some people still managed to be terminally offline, it’s encountered with surprising regularity.

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None of these categories should be confused with so-called ‘untranslatable words’. These time-honoured terms express concepts that most languages can only convey through lengthy explanation. Think schadenfreude from German and kuchisabishii from Japanese. Our fascination with these oddities is a topic for another day.

Double standards

On the other side of the fence, there’s a certain irony in how willingly Anglophones adopt French words as a mark of sophistication. Embellishing English with the occasional French fancy stands in stark contrast to the Académie, which fights tooth and nail to keep intruders out.

In highbrow culture, a raison d'être is de rigueur (though it may alienate some readers), and writers often use French terms like je ne sais quoi, vis-à-vis, carte blanche, or au contraire to pimp their prose.

(For language buffs, this phenomenon even has a name: aureation, from the Latin aureus, meaning ‘golden’; the act of ‘gilding’ one language with words from another, typically a more prestigious one.)

Meanwhile, in France, English words are absorbed not because they’re seen as grandiose, but simply because they’re practical, catchy, and can be used to signal that you’re keeping up with modern trends.

And if all this mixing and matching leaves you feeling a little disoriented, remember that blending languages isn’t just about the merits of substitutions. The two can be complementary, and taken to extremes, it becomes a form of artistic alchemy. In Feel Good, Charlotte Cardin weaves French and English into something greater than the sum of its parts.

The chicken and the egg

Another crucial factor in the debate is that language has always been a two-way street. The exchange of ideas and forms is not a modern anomaly but a historical constant. English itself has been profoundly shaped by French, with an estimated 30% of English words having French origins.

The real paradox is that many of the words the Académie deems objectionable intrusions were not even English to begin with.

Take the word email. The Académie insists on using courriel but if you break it down, electronic has Greek origins, and mail comes from the Old French maille (which originally meant bag or pouch). So, centuries ago, mail actually made its way into English, only to boomerang back to France more recently in its digital form. But now, upon its return from exile, it finds itself no longer welcome.

In practice, you might still use courriel when dealing with formal affairs, but in everyday life you’re most likely to hear mél, or more commonly mail. Dropping the e mirrors the Anglo trend that keeps it snappy. Language moves fast and even email is starting to sound archaic!

The ping-pong doesn't stop there. The English cloned beef from bœuf, overcooked it and served it back to France around the 18th century as a beefsteak. They called it un bifteck (of course!), but once they 'frenchified' it with French fries, it became too much of a mouthful. A staple of nearly every brasserie menu across France, un steak frites wouldn’t be the same without the comforting simplicity of un steak.

(Not to be confused with un rosbif, the antiquated and cheeky French nickname for the British.)

Un bifteck or un rosbif?

Even the word British itself has been adopted in France as shorthand to describe the archetypal aesthetic (son côté British).

Meanwhile, there doesn’t seem to be the same pushback in France against the influx of Arabic words, which have infiltrated everyday French just as prolifically as English ones.

Words like un bled (a godforsaken place), kif-kif (the same), and maboul (crazy) are all widely used and commonly understood.

This suggests that, despite the outcry over foreign vocabulary, what really irks language fundamentalists might instead be Anglo-American cultural hegemony.

Exception to the rule

Despite attracting criticism, in my view the Académie does gets some things right.

Whereas outside of France it's best known as a staunch defender of linguistic purity, domestically it also pursues its mission to uphold standards by regulating grammar and orthography.

So, while I find their focus on Anglicisms a little overzealous, their efforts to keep French comprehensible are nevertheless important. After all, clarity and structure matter in communication, and a language without rules could become chaotic. (Here the Académie clearly has its work cut out since French seems to have more than its fair share of rules!)

I think it’s reasonable to draw a distinction between the freedom to use new words where they align with how you choose to express yourself stylistically (even where that could be labelled as pretentious, phoney or otherwise), and making unintentional grammatical errors through sloppiness or illiteracy.

I also make a conscious effort to use French correctly, and there’s some fantastic content that can help keep you sharp.

We mustn't forget that when we talk about giving language space to evolve, style and tone are also fluid and deserve as much attention as the words we choose. Regardless of how intentionally we use language, it will inevitably shape our thinking and influence how we’re perceived.

French is dead, long live French!

So, should languages be treated as part of a country’s cultural heritage and protected at all costs? And if they aren’t, could their very survival be at risk?

Personally, I struggle to believe that a handful of rogue words could ever lead to the downfall, or even the transformation, of an entire language. It seems extraordinarily lacking in perspective to imagine otherwise. The fear that English will corrupt French ignores its vastness and resilience. French has endured for centuries through wars, revolutions, colonial expansions, and global upheavals.

Furthermore, language is inherently fluid and adaptive. That dynamism is part of what keeps them alive, fostering vibrant and expressive communication. Allowing foreign influences isn’t just pragmatic; it reflects cultural assimilation that, in my view, enriches rather than diminishes a language.

I see all evidence of engaging with foreign cultures and experimenting with language as a positive sign of curiosity and creativity.

Languages aren’t fossils or museum pieces and preserving them doesn’t mean freezing them in time. Honouring a cultural identity and embracing modernity need not be mutually exclusive and framing them as being in opposition not only seems undesirable but ultimately futile (and this collective of French linguists clearly agrees).

"Languages are like cats: they never obey." — Unknown

Unfortunately for the Académie, its guidelines are unenforceable, and its efforts could even be counterproductive. By attempting to coerce people into speaking in a certain way, it risks a backlash that incites people to defiantly embrace ‘taboo’ alternatives.

Paradoxically, the harder the Académie tries, the more it reinforces the perception that it's out of touch and dogmatic. Its efforts are perhaps revealing of deeper insecurities but language, like thought, can't be controlled by decree, and any attempts to do so can feel jarring.

Vox Populi

Do you find Anglicisms in French charming or annoying?

Do you think the Académie Française has a point? Is it the victim of un bad buzz, or an anachronism fighting a battle it’s unlikely to win?

And have you ever slipped in an unnecessary word from one language to sound un peu plus sophisticated in another?

Join the conversation in the comments below! ...