French has always borrowed words. That fact is not controversial among linguists: contact between languages produces borrowing, and borrowed words can become perfectly ordinary over time. What feels different today is where many borrowings come from (English), how fast they circulate (media, marketing, tech), and how publicly French society debates them. Few topics reveal this tension better than the pair anglicisms (English borrowings) and linguistic insecurity (the anxiety of speaking “incorrectly” or sounding socially out of place).
This article looks at both sides of the issue: the normal, even healthy role of borrowing in language change, and the specifically French tradition of strong norms—supported by institutions and policies—that can make people feel that their French is constantly being evaluated.
1) Borrowing is normal: languages take what they need
A useful starting point is the linguistic baseline: loanwords are a standard outcome of contact. A language borrows terms when it encounters new objects, institutions, practices, or prestige varieties that influence speakers’ choices. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s overview of loanwords emphasises exactly that: borrowing is common, and it often accompanies innovation and contact-driven change.
French is no exception. Many everyday French words are historical borrowings (from Italian, Arabic, Germanic languages, and others), and speakers rarely think of them as “foreign” anymore. The debate, then, is not really “Should French ever borrow?” It is about which borrowings feel necessary, which feel like marketing fashion, and what borrowing signals about identity and status.
2) What counts as an “anglicism”? Not one single phenomenon
In popular discourse, an anglicism is “an English word used in French.” In reality, linguists distinguish several types:
- lexical borrowings: a word imported more or less directly (week-end, marketing, email—sometimes adapted)
- semantic calques: a French word used with an English-like meaning extension (e.g., using a French verb in a way modelled on English usage)
- phraseological patterns: expressions that mirror English structures
Even older academic work used in teaching and research makes this point: “anglicisms” cover multiple categories, not one single kind of borrowing.
This matters because public reactions differ by type. A direct English noun in a government document may provoke irritation, while a subtle semantic shift often goes unnoticed—even if it is more structurally significant.
3) Why English borrowings feel especially visible today
Two forces amplify anglicisms in modern French:
A) The global prestige of English in tech, business, and pop culture.
English is often the first language in which new products, platforms, and practices are named. French then faces a choice: translate, adapt, or keep the English label.
B) Speed and scale of diffusion.
Social media and international marketing can push a new term across borders almost instantly, before institutions have time to propose French equivalents.
This is also why “anglicism debates” are often really debates about cultural power: people are arguing about the social meaning of English, not only about vocabulary.
4) France’s distinctive feature: language policy is part of public life
Many countries have style guides; fewer have a long tradition of explicit language policy. France does. The best-known legal symbol is the Toubon Law (law 94-665 of 4 August 1994), which mandates the use of French in a range of official, commercial, workplace, and advertising contexts (with important limits and exceptions).
The key point is not that the law “bans English” in everyday private conversation—it doesn’t. The point is that France treats language as a matter of public interest in contexts where information, consumer rights, and equal access are at stake.
Alongside legal frameworks, France also has an institutional system for proposing French equivalents, notably the Commission d’enrichissement de la langue française, whose recommended terms are published in the Journal officiel and are expected to be used in certain official contexts. The French Ministry of Education’s Eduscol page summarises this policy clearly: each year, hundreds of terms and definitions are published to fill vocabulary gaps, often where English terms are spreading.
This creates a very French situation: borrowing happens naturally, but there is also an organised effort to channel borrowing by offering French alternatives, especially for public administration and education.
5) The Académie française: symbolic authority and public recommendations
The Académie française is not a law-making body, but it plays a major symbolic role in debates about “good French.” One place where this becomes concrete is its recurring public commentary on anglicisms and fashionable neologisms (its “Dire, ne pas dire” resources include an ongoing section on anglicisms and travelling words).
This matters sociolinguistically: even when speakers ignore recommendations, the public presence of an authoritative voice reinforces the idea that vocabulary choices carry social meaning—taste, education, seriousness, modernity, snobbery, or even political stance.
If you’re learning French, this can be confusing: you hear mail and email, streamer and diffuser, brainstorming and remue-méninges. Often, both circulate, but not always in the same registers or contexts.
A very effective way to handle that as a learner is to train vocabulary together with context and register (formal vs informal, work vs friends, spoken vs written). That’s exactly the kind of practice built into ExploreFrench’s French communication modules, where you practise real tasks across all four skills and learn which wording sounds natural in which situations.
6) What is “linguistic insecurity”? The feeling that your French is never “good enough”
Now to the psychological side of the story. Linguistic insecurity is a sociolinguistic concept describing anxiety, embarrassment, or lack of confidence about one’s language use—often because speakers feel they do not match a perceived standard or prestige norm.
A Cairn article on l’insécurité linguistique explicitly links the concept to sociolinguistic work (including Labovian traditions) and describes how communities organise around norms, prestige, and social evaluation. Recent scholarship continues exploring linguistic insecurity in professional contexts and francophone settings, showing that it is not a marginal idea but an active research topic.
In French-speaking contexts, linguistic insecurity can be particularly intense because French is often treated as a language with:
- a strong standard,
- strong school-based evaluation,
- and high social value attached to “speaking well.”
That combination can make speakers—native and non-native—monitor themselves constantly.
7) How anglicisms and insecurity reinforce each other
Here is the key sociolinguistic loop:
- French society values a “correct” standard strongly.
- People fear being judged for errors or for sounding socially “off.”
- Anglicisms become socially loaded: using too many may sound trendy or pretentious; avoiding them too strongly may sound old-fashioned or performative.
- The result is more self-monitoring, more anxiety, and more debate.
Anglicisms are therefore not just lexical items; they are social signals. And once vocabulary becomes a signal, it becomes a potential trigger for linguistic insecurity.
8) A more realistic view: not “English vs French,” but competing norms
A scientific and learner-friendly way to describe the situation is this:
- Borrowing is normal and inevitable.
- Institutions propose alternatives to protect clarity in public life and to develop French terminology.
- Speakers choose forms based on context, identity, habit, and audience—not just “logic.”
- Anxiety arises when speakers believe there is a single correct answer and they might be punished socially for picking the wrong one.
For learners, the practical implication is important: you don’t need to “win” the anglicism debate. You need to recognise register and be able to switch style when needed.
If you want a structured way to build that flexibility—learning standard French while also understanding real usage and variation—ExploreFrench’s EF Complete French Course for self-learners is designed exactly for that: guided progression, repeated exposure, and practice that turns passive understanding into confident production.
Conclusion: borrowing is linguistic; insecurity is social—and French makes both highly visible
Anglicisms in French are not a sign that French is “failing.” They are a sign that French is alive, in contact with global cultural forces, and constantly adapting. At the same time, France’s strong tradition of standard norms and language policy makes vocabulary choices unusually visible—and therefore socially sensitive.
When those two realities meet, you get what we see today: borrowing plus debate, innovation plus regulation, and a lingering fear—among many speakers—that they might be judged for how they speak. Understanding that dynamic is liberating for learners: it replaces “I must speak perfectly” with a more realistic goal—I can speak appropriately for the situation, and improve steadily without anxiety.