The French Academy, the historic guardian of the French language, has warned the nation’s public bodies against encouraging "franglais", saying it poses a real danger, reports Euronews.
L'Académie Française said it was “seriously concerned” at the mixing of French with English words — an increasingly common phenomenon in an age of social media and globalised marketing.
Phrases such as “fake news”, “happy hour” or “Black Friday” have been widely adopted in France as elsewhere.
The academy said that “repeated violations” of the 1994 Toubon law, which sets out rules and requirements for the use of French, “distort our language” not just because of the “invasion of the Anglo-Saxon terms” but because of the damage done to syntax.
It did not identify any offending state officials, but said it “solemnly alerts public authorities and invites them first and foremost to respect the law themselves.”