Certain British footballers are known for their nonsensical musings and grammatical blunders — but few can match Franck Ribéry, the French winger.
“In terms of sensations, I didn’t feel anything,” he once told a reporter. “The Marseilles stadium is always full, home and away,” he told another. They are just two of the many comments that have made him a symbol of all that has gone wrong with the French language, purists say.
Jean Maillet has responded with a campaign against “linguistic crimes”. He published a book yesterday with a suitably dramatic title: Langue Française: Arrêtez le Massacre (Stop the Massacre).
An opinion poll released with the book suggests that sporting figures are seen as the worst culprits, with 78 per cent of respondents blaming them for the decline. Football, in particular, is a hotbed of English slang. The players talk about penalties and corners, instead of un coup de pied de réparation, and un coup de pied de coin. A striker past his best is called “un has-been”.
Maillet says the use of English is undermining a pillar of French society — and the trend is not confined to footballers. He notes, with horror, that some journalists refer to a good book as “un page-turner”.
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Ribéry, for his part, is wearily used to being ridiculed. “Me, personally, I criticise myself on my own,” he once said.