French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he is opposed to the use of so-called gender-inclusive language and asked not to give in to the “air of the times”, arguing that the masculine form can be neutral.
During the opening of a forum on the French language in Villers-Cotterêts, the French president defended the importance of the common language, arguing that “there will always be several languages in the Republic and one language of the Republic” as a tool for national unity.
So while he supported that this language is “alive,” that it involves “taking inspiration from others” and even “stealing words,” Macron declared that “its basic principles, the rules of its grammar” must be defended.
“In this language, the masculine is the neuter. We don’t have to add periods in the middle of words, or hyphens, or anything else to make it readable,” said Emmanuel Macron during his speech, which is similar to the criticism already publicly expressed by his wife, Brigitte Macron, who has been reluctant to introduce neologisms to adopt gender-neutral pronouns.
The speech also coincides with the debate on a proposal in the French Senate that openly calls for a ban on this type of language. The initiators of the text, presented from the republican bench, believe that this type of construction “represents a barrier to reading and understanding the written word”.
Source: DN
