Heh. The headline says “macho,” but I’m not sure that is allowed to be use to describe the French.

Paris (AFP) – French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has clamped down on attempts to make French more female-friendly, issuing a ban on so-called “inclusive writing” in official texts, according to a memo seen by AFP on Tuesday.

Moves to end the linguistic dominance of the masculine over the feminine have sparked impassioned debate in France, coming as a flurry of revelations about sexual harassment and assault continue to dominate global headlines.

At the centre of the row is the growing use of formulations to embrace both genders in the plural form, which requires full-stops being inserted in the word — to the horror of purists.