On Monday, 3 September, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation - the organisation representing French-speaking Belgium - announced in an article published in the French newspaper Libération that they want to change a French grammar rule.
The two French-speaking Belgian academics (who will probably attract the sympathy of French students), Arnaud Hoedt and Jerome Piron, expressed their wish to abandon the agreement of the past participle with the verb to have (avoir).
They are supported by "the opinions of the Council of the French language and linguistic policy of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (CLFPL) and the International Council of the French language (Cilf)", which Liberation compares to our "general delegation of the French language, under the tutelage of the Minister of Culture. "
Rule reminder
The rule tends to affect only written French because, when spoken, there is normally no difference between the pronunciation of past participles.
Indeed, unlike the verb "to be" (être), where the past participles must show an agreement with the pronoun, the past participle does not normally change when it is used with the verb to have, for example; they danced, you saw ...(J'ai dansé, tu as vu...)
There are some exceptions: when the direct object comes before the past participle, it has to agree in kind and in number with the direct object.
Crêpes as an example
The example supported by the two Belgians is: "Les crêpes que j'ai mangées"
The past participle of the verb to eat (manger) is therefore feminine / plural with the direct object "crêpes". But if the direct object was placed after the past participle, the agreement does not apply, and so the example would be "J'ai mangé des crêpes".
Again, both academics say the rule is "obsolete and complicated beyond the absurd".
No more exceptions
The ideal for both Belgians would be to remove all exceptions to the rules so that the past participle does not change, even used with the verb avoir; that would make, "Les crêpes que j'ai mangé".
"At school, children ask: why before and not after?" Teachers often know how to explain the rule but do not know why it exists - the incoherence of traditional rules prevents them from making sense of their teaching. "
"It would be so much more beneficial ... to teach our children anything that allows them to master the language rather than keeping the most arbitrary parts of their writing code."
Some in France think that Belgians could put forward their point of view, the French newspaper Nice Matin even saying "and they may be right".
