THE French are funny about gender. A masculine word I straditionally used—if need be—to embrace the feminine. Un medecin, for instance, could be a female as well as a male doctor. Conversely, some feminine nouns could also handle distinctly masculine subjects: for example, sa majeste (his or her majesty), une personne (whether man or woman), une vedette (a film star of either sex), or une souris (a
male or female mouse).

Some nouns, such as journaliste, can vary the gender according to the scribbler’s sex: le or la journaliste. A few, such as  boulanger/boulangere (baker) or instituteur/institutrice (primary-school teacher), have masculine and feminine forms. But there is no feminine one for such grander equivalents in a lycee (a senior high school), who remain professeurs whether female or not. A female president can become une presiden te, but a female ambassador remains madame l’ambassadeur: l’ambassadrice would usually be an ambassador’s wife. In strict linguistic parlance, a government minister who happens to be a woman is still madame le ministre, though most now ask to be called madame la ministre.

How confusing—even to French people. And how annoying to a  growing number of women, not just feminists, now increasingly in high places. Lionel Jospin, France’s Socialist prime minister, who happens to be married to a philosopher with feminist leanings, has decided to press the feminists’ cause. In March he said that feminised job descriptions should be  used wherever in common use, even  though not yet in the official dictionary; and he told a government commission responsible for dreaming up and vetting new words to study the practice in other French-speaking countries.

But France’s two education ministers, a man and a woman, have decided not to wait for the commission’s report, due out in December. All women’s job titles should, they declare, be linguistically feminised. A female member of parliament should henceforth be a deputee (with that extra e at the end); a female lawyer becomes une avocate (also with a final e); professions ending in –eur will normally finish with -rice, as in une inspectrice (an inspector) or may take -euse, as in une chercheuse (a researcher).

The almost all-male Academie Francaise, official guardian of the French language’s purity for 253 years, is spluttering. The rank of minister does not, say its ageing immortals, “confer the right to modify the use of the French anguage”. Maurice Druon, 80, “perpetual secretary” of the 40-member august body, is threatening to take the matter to the Constitutional Court.