Writing in French

French text formatting varies from English text formatting. When transitioning French translation to CMS Lite, ensure formatting is maintained.

This guide points out a few ways in which French punctuation and formatting differs from English.

On this page

• Capitalization
• Curved apostrophe
• Italics
• Lists
• Numbers
• Punctuation and spacing
• Superscript

Capitalization

In French, several words that are capitalized in English remain lowercase:

• Days of the week
• Months
• Religions and their adjectives
• Languages and nationalities

Only capitalize the first word in a title, unless the other words are proper nouns.

Curved apostrophe

French uses the typographic (curved) apostrophe (’), instead of the straight apostrophe ('). 

Most text processors correct this automatically; if making changes in CMS Lite, use the special character tool, or use ALT+0146 on the numeric keypad.

Italics

In French, italics are not used to emphasize content.

Italics are used to set apart some words, including the names of legislation and titles of written documents.

Lists

In French, list punctuation is mandatory, except if the list item is only one or two words and not part of a sentence.

Punctuation in lists

A list item may end with a comma, a semicolon or a period. The first word may or may not be capitalized, depending on list structure and content.

Exception

In some cases, like a PowerPoint presentation, poster or data table, punctuation may be omitted if the list does not form a complete sentence.

‘And’ or ‘or’ are never used after the second-to-last item

Do not add et (and) or ou (or) before the final list item.

Numbers

French uses a space as the thousands’ separator and a comma as the decimal separator.

Currency

The currency sign is placed after the number, preceded by a space.

Percentages

The percentage sign is preceded by a space.

Date and time

Date appears in the following format without any commas: DD month YYYY.

Time appears in the 24-hour format, the colon is replaced by the symbol of “hour” (“ h “): H h MM. Zeros after the hour are omitted.

Punctuation and spacing

French uses guillemets (« ») instead of quotation marks (“ “). The guillemets are separated from the quoted text by a non-breaking space.

English quotation marks (“ “) are sometimes used as second-level quotation marks within French guillemets.

Non-breaking space

A non-breaking space must always appear before:

• A colon (;)
• Guillemets (Quotation marks (« »))

Note: CMS Lite does not currently support the non-breaking space. Make sure that the colon does not get separated from the preceding word and that the guillemets do not get separated from the quoted text.

Thin space (if available)

CMS Lite does not currently support the thin space. In other applications (InDesign, graphics, etc.) where a thin space is available, a thin space appears before:

• Semicolons (;)
• Question marks (?)
• Exclamation points (!)

Superscript

Some abbreviations in French require part of the word to be set in superscript:

• 1^er 
• 12^e 
• M^me 
• D^r 
• n^o 

Make sure that the superscript is maintained and that it does not get separated from the word that follows.

Ordinal numbers

1^er and 1^re are used only for "first" and depend on noun gender.

• 1^er → masculine (1^er janvier)
• 1^re → feminine (1^re année)

For all other ordinal numbers, add "e" in superscript (2^e, 3^e, 4^e, etc.), except when writing dates. 

When writing dates, only use ordinal numbers for the first day of the month. The first day of the month must be spelled 1^er. All other dates use cardinal numbers (2, 3, 4, etc.) without "e".