The entry of the pronoun “iel” in the Le Robert online dictionary has sparked a controversy that agitates conservatives right up to the top of the state. Explanations.
Three little letters and an outcry that we hadn’t seen since debates around inclusive writing. After Jean-Michel Blanquer, it is Brigitte Macron who spoke out against the use of the term “iel” this Thursday, November 18, 2021. You have never heard of him? Contraction of the pronoun “she” and “he”, “iel” is a neutral pronoun intended for people who do not recognize themselves in the feminine or the masculine gender. Its entry in the dictionary makes sense because, if it is still little used, it meets the need of a significant part of the French to reappropriate the language to better define their identity.
At the end of 2020, an Ifop survey relayed by France Inter recalled that 22% of 18-30 year olds do not recognize themselves in the binary girl-boy pattern. So why this controversy, which has been swelling for a week now? Media Komitid and Stubborn came back in detail on this bomb. Indeed, it was last month that Le Robert integrated the pronoun “iel” to its online version. Info that will not be relayed by the Twitter account the important that a few weeks later, on November 13. This is where part of the political class reacts, in particular the very angry LREM deputy for Indre, François Jolivet, who denounces the choice of Robert and describes his linguists as “Activists for a cause that has nothing French about it”. Then Jean-Michel Blanquer gives him his support and posts a tweet in which he defends the fact that “Inclusive writing is not the future of the French language”. Since then, the non-gendered pronoun has passed from social networks to one of the mainstream media, passing through President Macron’s wife.
“Iel”, a simple brand of societal developments
If “iel” disturbs, it does not only have enemies. In a press release published on the Robert website, its managing director, Charles Bimbenet, defended the pronoun: “Robert’s mission is to observe the evolution of a French language in movement, diverse, and to report on it. Defining the words that mean the world is helping to understand it better ”, he writes. In an interview with Têtu, Marie-Hélène Drivaud aligns herself with her colleague from Robert. “We noticed in the statistics that a lot of people wondered about the word ‘iel’, so it seemed normal to us to answer them”, explains the editorial director of the dictonnaire. For France Inter, she adds: “The French language is a gendered language where you have to choose your camp, ‘he’ or ‘she’. Some do not want to make this choice and they have found this solution, which is good or not, it is not for us to judge. We are simply there to account for a use. “
Others note that if the affair is making such noise, it is not so much for linguistic reasons as it is for political reasons. Indeed, the anti-iel camps are made up of conservative French figures, ranging from the extreme right to the most right wing La République en Marche by extending to the universalist left. And all have a common target, of which “he” would only be a new manifestation.
When the conservatives unite against the wicked “wokists”
The term “woke” has its roots in the African-American community of the 19th century and describes the time when black citizens became fully aware of the post-colonial segregationist society and organized themselves on a large scale. scale to change it. By extension, the term “woke” began to designate causes other than the fight against negrophobia: anti-racism in general, LGBTQIA + issues, feminism … So many very active struggles today, in particular thanks to the reasoning fund of social networks, and that the reactionaries seek to invalidate by qualifying them as “wokism”, a negative diversion of the original militant term. Their big argument? The “wokists” would seek to model an American ideology on French reality and for that, they would denature the noble French language with new words, like “iel”.
Ironically, conservative politicians seem to be revolted by the Americanization of the political ideas of the younger generation (as if our country, too, was not mired in the same oppressions). However, the entry in the dictionary of words such as “start-up”, “business plan”, “brainstorming” or even “Uberiser” did not arouse the same indignation in them. This one seems very vain today: how to imagine that the language does not evolve with those and those who speak it? Still, by bracing themselves on this myth of a pure and immobile language to which citizens should constantly adapt, the anti-them have brought it out of the shadows. He is not ready to return.
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