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France frowns on English words such as clickbait and podcast

The Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language (CELF) has published the new list of alternatives in an official government newsletter.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

France has announced a new list of alternatives for English language terms such as clickbait, podcast and deepfake, reports the BBC.

The Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language (CELF) published the new list in an official government newsletter.

It has released a number of recommendations over the years in a bid to stop English terms taking hold.

Among the phrases discouraged in a 2018 release was the phrase "fake news".

In that instance, CELF recommended that the French instead say "information fallacieuse", or "infox", for the term popularised by US President Donald Trump.

Public bodies must abide by the new recommendations.

For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.

Read more of this report from the BBC.