France is getting strict on attempts to make the country “woke”, claiming that the use of gender neutral terms is a threat to the French language as a whole.
In French grammar, nouns are either masculine or feminine, taking on the gender to which the word is referring. The Académie Française, a 400-year-old institution says that the use of gender-neutral words is harmful to the practice and understanding of the French language, and would drive more people to learn English.
The State Secretary for Priority Education, Nathalie Elimas, stated these changes to the language were “a danger to our country” and “the death knell for the use of French in the world.”
Elimas also insists it would push more people away from learning the traditional French language. “With the spread of inclusive writing, the English language- already quasi-hegemonic across the world- would certainly and perhaps forever defeat the French language”.
Many French politicians, journalists, and intellectuals have already been behind the protection of the French language from the far-left culture from the United States.
“Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture.” the New York Times reported.
President of France Emmanuel Macron warned in a speech that American “woke leftism” is a threat to France that “fuels secessionism”, “abets Islamism”, “gnaws at national unity”, and “attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.”
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