France’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, has upheld the use of inclusive writing (écriture inclusive) on commemorative plaques at Paris City Hall in a controversial ruling.
It marks the first time the court has explicitly recognised inclusive writing as a valid form of the French language.
The case dates back to 2017, when Paris City Council unanimously voted to update marble plaques honouring former presidents of the council and councillors who had served more than 25 years.
The new inscriptions, engraved in gold lettering, included forms such as “conseiller.e.s” and “président.e.s“, employing the mid-point (point médian) to denote both masculine and feminine forms.
The association Francophonie Avenir, which campaigns to defend the French language, challenged the changes.
The mid-point rendered the text non-compliant with standard French and constituted an ideological statement, it said.
After Paris City Hall failed to respond to their demand to restore the original wording, the association took the matter to the administrative courts.
In March 2023, the Paris Administrative Tribunal rejected the claim, ruling the inclusive forms fell within the French language.
This was upheld by the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal in April 2025, which added using the notation for titles or functions did not automatically amount to a political or ideological position.
Francophonie Avenir then lodged an appeal with the Council of State.
On December 31, 2025, the Council rejected this appeal, effectively confirming the lower courts’ findings.
It deemed the mid-point a legitimate punctuation tool for expressing inclusivity.
Régis Ravat, president of Francophonie Avenir, said in a reaction “By dismissing us, the judges have created a jurisprudence in favour of inclusive language, which now risks being used by gender community activists to justify the use of this writing everywhere! In French, a point in a word doesn’t exist; putting one in, it’s no longer French, but gibberish.”
The ruling, which was released to media on January 6, sparked immediate backlash.
Critics, including politicians and language purists, described it as a blow to French linguistic tradition.
On social media, reactions ranged from outrage to sarcasm.
One user posted: “Aux grand.e.s homme.sse.s, la.e Patri.e reconnaissant.e.“, a mocking twist on the classic phrase “Aux grands hommes, la patrie reconnaissante“.
Another called it “a shame” and accused the Council of promoting “woke ideology”.
On Radio Monte-Carlo’s Les Grandes Gueules, presenter Olivier Truchot remarked: “In real life, do you know anyone who uses inclusive writing apart from the Paris City Hall and SUD-Rail? No! The French don’t want it.”
A French teacher guest added she already struggles to get pupils to write comprehensible sentences without adding further complications.
The decision does not mandate widespread use of inclusive writing but clears the way for local authorities like Paris to employ it in official contexts without legal challenges on linguistic grounds.
It comes amid ongoing national debates over the language’s evolution, with the Senate already having approved legislation to curb “inclusive” practices.
Faced with the decision of the Council of State, its rapporteur Cédric Vial will refer the matter to the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, to include the draft bill on the agenda for the National Assembly.
Earlier, French President Macron already came out against the use of “inclusive” writing.
The right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) has said it planned to ban civil servants in the Austrian state of Styria from using “gender-inclusive language”. https://t.co/BNy2gcN6lc
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) December 18, 2024
