France banned the use and teaching of gender-neutral grammar in schools as part of an effort to push back on social revisionism.
The push for gender-neutral words is “harmful to the practice and understanding of [French],” according to the Academie Francais, the entity responsible for regulating the French language.
The new ruling from the education ministry comes as teachers and professors had begun to adopt new spellings of gendered language to be “more inclusive.”
French, as a language derived from Latin, adopts male and female forms of words, utilizing different spellings of the same words to differentiate whether a group of friends, for example, includes males or females.
A modern movement looking to boost inclusivity has suggested the country adopt “midpoints” in the language to reflect both the masculine as well as the feminine forms of a single word.
GRAHAM SLAMS ‘THE SQUAD’ FOR ‘SIDING WITH A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION OVER DEMOCRACY’
Traditional French language rules dictate that a body of people is referred to by the masculine “amis” if at least one of the individuals in the group is male. Using this same example, the group would be spelled as “ami.e.s” to recognize the different genders.
Nathalie Elimas, the state secretary for priority education, said these changes could “defeat the French language” and could discourage people from ever learning it.
“With the spread of inclusive writing, the English language, already quasi-hegemonic across the world, would certainly and perhaps forever defeat the French language,” she said.
Jean-Michel Blanquer, France’s education minister, similarly described the learning of the newly suggested rules as problematic.
The changes “present a barrier” to those seeking to learn French, especially to those with cognitive disabilities, he said.
French leadership as a whole has mostly pushed back on particular social science theories, such as the adoption of “identity politics” that have become more readily accepted in America.
Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would continue to resist “certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,” as they posed a threat to France’s cultural heritage.
“There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,” added Blanquer.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Macron specifically encouraged universities in his country to resist the “ethnicization of the social question,” recognizing higher education’s role in influencing the populace.
Adopting such social ideologies could result in “breaking the republic in two,” he said.
