IN A NONBINARY PRONOUN, FRANCE SEES A U.S. ATTACK

PARIS» Perhaps France was always going to have a hard time with nonbinary pronouns. Its language is intensely gender-specific and fiercely protected by august authorities. Still, the furor provoked by a prominent dictionary’s inclusion of the pronoun “iel” has been remarkably virulent.

Le Petit Robert, rivaled only by the Larousse in linguistic authority, chose to add “iel” — a genderneutral merging of the masculine “il” (he) and the feminine “elle” (she) — to its latest online edition. Jean-michel Blanquer, the education minister, was not amused.

“You must not manipulate the French language, whatever the cause,” he said, expressing support for the view that “iel” was an expression of “wokisme.”

Blanquer is seemingly convinced of a sweeping American “woke” assault on France aimed at spreading racial and gender discord over French universalism. Last month he told the daily Le Monde that a backlash against what he called woke ideology was the main factor in the 2016 presidential victory of Donald Trump.

In this instance, however, he was joined by Brigitte Macron, the first lady. “There are two pronouns: he and she,” she declared. “Our language is beautiful. And two pronouns are appropriate.”

The Robert defines “iel” (pronounced roughly “yell”) as “a third person subject pronoun in the singular and plural used to evoke a person of any gender.”

Charles Bimbenet, its directorgeneral, posted a statement rejecting the minister’s charge of militancy. “The mission of the Robert is to observe the evolution of a French language that is in motion and diverse, and take account of that,” he wrote. “To define the words that describe the world is to aid better comprehension of it.”

France, a country where it is illegal for the state to compile racial statistics, is particularly on edge over the rise of U.S. gender and race politics. President Emmanuel Macron has warned that “certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States” may be a threat. Blanquer has identified “an intellectual matrix” in U.S. universities bent on undermining a supposedly colorblind French society of equal men and women through the promotion of identity-based victimhood.

This is the backdrop to the “iel” explosion, which left-wing newspaper Libération described under the headline “The Highway to Iel.”

Lilian Delhomme, 24, a gendernonconforming student of international affairs at the University of Paris 8, was appalled by Brigitte Macron’s statement. “This for me was very violent,” Delhomme said.

Explaining the decision to switch to “iel,” Delhomme said: “Life was difficult enough being gay, and I didn’t want to add to that, but gradually I evolved, and I understood that my identity was not that of a man.”