french-native-copy

French Native Copy (Social)

French execution layer for the social engine: it owns how French reads for francophone Africa, not France, while language-standards owns the cross-language tone policy. The reader is an educated professional with advanced French comprehension; never assume the reader is in Paris.

Use When

A campaign needs French posts, captions or ad lines for Kinshasa, Dakar, Abidjan, Douala or Bujumbura, not for readers in France.
English social copy must be adapted into natural French rather than translated word for word, keeping the formal vous register.
Prices, dates and institutions must follow francophone African usage: FCFA, BCEAO or BEAC, OHADA and local mobile money names.
A French draft needs a native reviewer's check on grammar, gender agreement and identity details before the client sees it.

Do Not Use When

language-standards for the cross-language tone and grammar rulebook.
east-african-english when the copy stays in English for East African readers.
swahili-native-copy when the target language is Kiswahili.
Stop before publishing French copy that no native reviewer has checked; deliver it marked as awaiting review.

Required Inputs

Artefact	Source/provider	Required?	If absent
Source material the French must convey: approved English caption or brief, brand voice, or raw client facts	Requester or approved brief	Yes	Stop; do not adapt an English caption the client has not approved.
Audience and market: France, francophone Africa (and which country), Canada or mixed; this sets vocabulary, register defaults and currency/date conventions	Client or brief	Yes	Default to francophone Africa broadly (FCFA, OHADA) and record the country as unconfirmed.
Register decision: `vous` (default) or `tu` (youth/lifestyle)	Brief or brand voice	Yes	Use formal `vous` and hold it across the post and its replies.
Platform and post type (caption, hook, ad, bio)	Brief	Yes	Draft a caption-length version and mark platform limits `not assessed`.
Offer facts, prices, names and protected terminology	Client source pack or authorised owner	Conditional	Use a visible placeholder such as `[PRIX]`; never invent a price, result or name.
Fluent French reviewer	Client or agency	Yes before release	Deliver the copy marked awaiting review, with `native_review: not-assessed`.

Workflow

Confirm the source material, market, register, platform and approval owner; route to east-african-english or swahili-native-copy if the copy should not be in French, and stop if the objective or audience is unknowable.
Fix the market conventions before drafting: francophone Africa by default (formal vous; OHADA, BCEAO/BEAC, FCFA and local mobile money names, not France-specific institutions), or the market the requester names.
Choose vous or tu with register and address and record the choice.
Adapt, do not translate: rebuild hooks, connectors and CTAs with idiom and hooks and sector terms with vocabulary by theme.
Proofread against grammar pitfalls, anglicisms to avoid and typography and formatting: agreement, partitives, spacing, prices and dates.
Run the back-translation test (French to English); where meaning drifts, correct the French and rerun the test until it holds.
Run the anti-ai-slop ship gate, complete the identity and register review record, and hand over the copy with its native-review state; stop before publication while review is outstanding.

Market standard and sources

Primary markets (standard): DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi, Senegal, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Cameroon, Gabon, Madagascar, Bénin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Djibouti, Comoros. Target Afrique francophone broadly (Côte d'Ivoire, Sénégal, Cameroun, RDC, Guinée, Mali, Burkina, Gabon, Bénin, Togo…) with FCFA currency and OHADA/SYSCOHADA frameworks where relevant, not France-centric or Québécois vocabulary; language-standards holds the full geographic policy.
Website and long-form French live in the website engine's sister skill (content-copy/french-native-copy).
Source material distilled from: Annie Heminway, Practice Makes Perfect — Complete French Grammar; Boulares & Frérot, Grammaire progressive du français — Niveau avancé; Learn French II — Parallel Text; and the French–English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (DK).

Outputs

Artefact	Consumer	Acceptance condition
Publish-ready French copy per platform and post type	Client reviewer; community manager	Register, agreement, typography and market conventions pass the checks below; no invented facts.
Native-review note (identity and register record)	Approver	Names the market, `vous`/`tu` choice, reviewer and review date, or states `not-assessed`.
Adaptation note	Client reviewer	Lists placeholders, adapted idioms and any claim still awaiting a source or authority.

Evidence Produced

Evidence	Format	Acceptance condition
Back-translation check	French line beside its English back-translation	Meaning matches the approved source without distortion.
Native-review record	YAML record from the identity and register review	Missing reviewer or date is recorded as `NOT_ASSESSED`, never as a pass.

Capability and Permission Boundaries

Read and search only; analysis is read-only. Publishing, spend, live account changes, outreach and personal-data processing need explicit, action-specific client authority. Drafting French copy within the supplied brief is permitted; certifying native quality is not.

Degraded Mode

Without a fluent French reviewer or a confirmed market, return the narrowest qualified result and mark the affected checks not assessed. A francophone-Africa vous draft with placeholders and a back-translation can still be delivered, marked awaiting review.

Decision Rules

Condition	Action	Failure or risk avoided
Market not named, or named as francophone Africa	Use `vous`, FCFA, BCEAO/BEAC and OHADA references; no France-specific institutions.	Paris-centric copy that African readers reject.
Requester names France, Canada or another market	Replace the default market guidance with that market's conventions and record the change.	Imposing African defaults on a different audience.
Youth or lifestyle brand and the client approves `tu`	Use `tu` and make every verb, pronoun and possessive agree with it throughout the post and replies.	Mixed register that reads as careless translation.
English source relies on an idiom or pun	Rebuild the idea in native French rather than calque it.	Literal or culturally misplaced copy presented as native-quality language.
A price, result or approval is missing	Stop that claim; request it or leave a visible placeholder.	Fabricated facts, implied consent or unauthorised publication.
Copy names a person, organisation or community	Keep the minimum identity record; add legal name or pronunciation only when purpose and consent require it.	Collecting identity data without need.

Quality Standards

A French native reader finds nothing that signals translation: no calques, no anglicisms, no English word order or punctuation spacing.
Register is consistent across the post and its replies; every verb, pronoun and possessive agrees with the chosen tu/vous.
Every adjective agrees in gender and number; partitives are correct and collapse to de after negation or quantity.
Typography follows French rules; prices read 12 500 FCFA or 1 250,00 €, not €1,250.00.
Hashtags and discovery phrases are what a French speaker actually searches, not transposed English.
The copy passes the back-translation test: French to English reproduces the intended meaning without distortion.
Names, figures, quotations and platform rules are verified before use; notes to the client are in British English.
The anti-ai-slop ship gate is run; a blocking factual, cultural, safety or permission defect stops release.

Anti-Patterns

Translating the English caption word for word. Fix: adapt the hook, connectors and CTA with the idiom reference.
Switching between tu and vous inside a post or its replies. Fix: record the register choice first and check every verb and possessive against it.
Formatting prices the English way (€1,250.00). Fix: use French spacing and decimal commas (12 500 FCFA, 1 250,00 €).
Referencing Paris institutions for an Abidjan or Kinshasa audience. Fix: use FCFA, BCEAO/BEAC, OHADA and local mobile money names.
Adding a price, result, quotation, platform limit or cultural claim without a traceable source. Fix: verify it, or qualify or remove it.
Treating missing native-language review as approval. Fix: mark the check not assessed and deliver the copy as awaiting review.
Publishing, sending or changing a live account from drafting authority alone. Fix: obtain explicit action-specific authority and keep the approval record.

References

Register and address: read when fixing tu/vous, softening requests or setting a formal-but-warm tone.
Idiom and hooks: read when the French is correct but flat, or when drafting hooks, CTAs and hashtags.
Grammar pitfalls: read when proofreading articles, agreement, negation, pronouns or verb constructions.
Anglicisms to avoid: read when French feels off without an obvious grammar error.
Typography and formatting: read when finalising spacing, punctuation, prices and dates.
Vocabulary by theme: read when a sector term and its gender are needed.
Identity and register review: read when the copy names a person, organisation or community, or when recording native review.
language-standards: read when the cross-language tone policy or the full geographic policy is in question.
east-african-english: read when the copy should stay in English for East African readers.
swahili-native-copy: read when the target language is Kiswahili.
Anti-AI slop production gate: read before release.
Repository agent guide: read when the engine-wide market, safety and anti-slop gates apply.

Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com, +256 784 464178.