Using "tu" when addressing a
stranger, an older person or a business superior in France used to be seen as
ill-mannered.
Such a basic mistake was tolerated only when made by red-faced foreigners
trying to remember how to translate "you". But all that has changed. The "vous"
form of address is losing out to the more informal "tu" in French business and
politics, and the English-speaking world, with its open-collared approach to
social relations, is apparently to blame, according to the newspaper Le Figaro.
Basing its findings on interviews with business leaders, politicians and
linguists, the paper reported that "vouvoyer" is now often synonymous with an
old-fashioned approach that betrays an unwillingness to move with the times.
The use of "tu" springs from the same concept as horizontal management, which
considers that everyone should be on an equal footing, according to Pierre Le
Goff, a sociologist.
Aurelien Letort, an engineer at the Sopra group, said: "It allows you to
bring different hierarchical levels together, to communicate more easily.
"When you 'tutoie' someone, you tend to speak more frankly."
The shift towards "tu" is the latest phase in a battle between the two second
person singular forms that has been raging since the French Revolution. In 1793
a decree banned the use of "vous" in the French administration on pain of
prison.
Under General de Gaulle, "vous" was back in vogue but the advocates of "tu"
scored a major victory during the May 1968 student uprisings, when the general's
patriarchal view of society was challenged.
Today, many businesses officially advocate "tu". The balance has also shifted
in French politics, where the linguistic rules are difficult to understand for
the outsider, but are often telling to the refined observer.
President Jacques Chirac, who still addresses his wife Bernardette with the
"vous" form, never uses "tu" with his most respected allies, such as the prime
minister, Dominique de Villepin. However, his younger rival, the ambitious
interior minister and presidential frontrunner, Nicolas Sarkozy, gets the
condescending "tu" treatment. Mr Sarkozy replies using "vous".
"Tutoyer" is de rigueur among Socialists, and is a linguistic extension of
their image as "comrades". But the former president, Fran?ois Mitterrand,
abhorred the practice. In one now famous meeting at the Elysée palace, a
Socialist parliamentarian suggested that everyone adopt the "tu" form as "in the
Socialist Party everyone does it".
"Si VOUS voulez," Mr Mitterrand replied, coldly. The MP took the
hint.
