french-language

Enforce French Language Conventions

You are helping the user ensure that all project content is written in proper French, with correct accents, grammar, and typographic conventions.

This skill applies to all generated or edited files that contain human-readable French text, not just documentation.

When to Use

• The project's CLAUDE.md or documentation specifies French as the primary language
• The user asks to write, review, or fix French content
• The user mentions accents, orthographe, typographie, or langue française
• Files contain French text with missing or incorrect accents
• Generating any file (SVG, Mermaid, PlantUML, Draw.io, HTML, CSV, JSON, YAML, etc.) in a project configured for French

Pre-flight Checks

Before making changes, always:

1. Check the project's language configuration — look for CLAUDE.md, README, or other configuration files that specify the project language
2. Identify which files contain French text — scan all file types, not just markdown
3. Ask the user before making bulk changes — especially when fixing accents across many files

French Writing Rules

Accents and Special Characters

French accents are mandatory, not optional. Missing accents change word meaning and are considered spelling errors.

Character	Name	Examples
é	accent aigu	réalisateur, qualité, équipe, périmètre
è	accent grave	stratège, modèle, problème, critère
ê	accent circonflexe	être, forêt, fête, tête
à	a accent grave	à, déjà, voilà
ù	u accent grave	où
ô	o accent circonflexe	contrôle, rôle, clôture, binôme
î	i accent circonflexe	maître, connaître
ç	cédille	ça, français, leçon, reçu
ë, ï, ü	tréma	Noël, naïf, ambiguïté

Common Missing Accent Patterns

When reviewing or generating French text, watch for these frequently missed accents:

Wrong	Correct	Context
qualite	qualité	noun ending in -ité
securite	sécurité	noun ending in -ité
perimetre	périmètre	noun ending in -ètre
deploiement	déploiement	noun with dé- prefix
developpeur	développeur	noun with dé- prefix
stratege	stratège	noun ending in -ège
modele	modèle	noun ending in -èle
cloture	clôture	noun with ô
equipe	équipe	noun with é
role	rôle	noun with ô
etre	être	verb with ê
batisseur	bâtisseur	noun with â
retrospective	rétrospective	noun with é
responsabilites	responsabilités	plural noun with é

Technical Terms

Technical English terms commonly used in French tech contexts should be kept in English:

• Sprint, Backlog, Product Owner, Scope, Deadline
• CI/CD, DevOps, LLMOps, API, SDK
• RACI, SOW, ROI, NPS, KPI
• Pull Request, Code Review, Merge Request
• Framework, Pipeline, Prompt Engineering

Rule: if the term is universally used in English in French tech culture, keep it. If a standard French equivalent exists and is commonly used, prefer the French version.

Anglicisms and Non-Idiomatic Calques

Distinct from the assumed technical terms above: watch for English words or expressions that have been verbified or bent into French without marking them as jargon, and that either sound non-idiomatic or create a false meaning because a different French word already exists.

Wrong (unmarked calque)	Why it's a problem	Correction
adresser un problème	Calque of "to address an issue"; "adresser" in French means to send/direct to someone	traiter, résoudre un problème
supporter un client	Calque of "to support"; "supporter" in French means to endure/tolerate, a false friend	accompagner, prendre en charge
une opportunité (à saisir)	Calque of "opportunity"; overused anglicism where a plain French word is more idiomatic	une occasion
challenger une idée	English "challenge" verbified with "-er"	remettre en question, contester
définitivement (= for sure)	Calque of "definitely"; "définitivement" in French means permanently/for good, a false friend	vraiment, effectivement

How to tell this apart from a legitimate technical term (see "Technical Terms" above): a term the author deliberately marks as borrowed jargon — italics, bold, code formatting, or quotes (e.g. panes, dashboard, API) — is intentional and out of scope here. An anglicism used bare, inline, as if it were a normal French word, is the target of this check.

Rule: if a calque is used bare (no italics/formatting) and either (a) does not read as natural French or (b) collides with an existing French word's meaning, propose a French alternative. If the author wants to keep the anglicism, suggest marking it as jargon (italics or quotes) instead of leaving it bare.

French Typography

French typography differs from English in several ways:

Rule	Example
Space before : ; ! ?	Attention : ceci est important
No space before , .	Bonjour, comment allez-vous.
Guillemets for quotes	« texte » (with non-breaking spaces)
Ordinals	1er, 2e, 3e (not 1ème, 2ème)
Capitalization	Less capitalization than English — Modèle opératoire not Modèle Opératoire
Em dash (—)	Not standard French punctuation — replace with :, (…), or . depending on context

Em dash vs English: The em dash is valid and common in English. Do not remove em dashes from English content. Only apply this rule to French text.

Note on generated files: Typography rules (spaces before punctuation, guillemets) may not be practical in all file formats. Prioritize correct accents in all cases; apply typography rules when the format supports them without breaking rendering.

Process

Step 1: Discover Content to Review

Scan the project for all files containing French text:

• Documentation: *.md files
• Diagrams and visuals: *.svg, *.drawio, *.puml, *.mmd (Mermaid)
• Web content: *.html, *.htm, *.vue, *.jsx, *.tsx
• Data files: *.csv, *.json, *.yaml, *.yml, *.toml
• Presentations: *.tex, *.adoc, *.rst
• Configuration: CLAUDE.md, README.md, *.properties, *.ini
• Code: comments and string literals in source files

Step 2: Analyze and Report

For each file, identify:

• Missing or incorrect accents
• Grammar issues
• Typography issues (spaces before colons, etc.)
• Inconsistent language (mixing French and English in non-technical contexts)
• Unmarked anglicisms or calques (verbified English, false-friend translations) — see "Anglicisms and Non-Idiomatic Calques" above. Skip terms already marked as assumed jargon (italics, bold, code, quotes).

Present findings as a table:

| File | Issue | Wrong | Correct |
|------|-------|-------|---------|
| docs/roles.md | Missing accent | qualite | qualité |
| diagram.svg | Missing accent | deploiement | déploiement |
| data.csv | Missing accent | responsabilite | responsabilité |
| article.md | Unmarked anglicism | adresser un problème | traiter un problème |

Step 3: Apply Fixes

After user approval:

1. Use Edit with replace_all=true for each correction pattern across each file
2. For each file format, respect the format-specific guidelines below
3. Verify no regressions after applying fixes

Step 4: Validate

After applying fixes:

1. Search for remaining common missing accent patterns
2. Confirm all files are consistent
3. Report any terms you're unsure about (ask the user for guidance)

Format-Specific Guidelines

SVG Files

• Only modify text content inside <text> elements — never touch coordinates, styles, or structure
• Check text fits — accented characters may be slightly wider; verify text still fits within its container
• Use UTF-8 characters — not XML entities (é not é)
• Linters may reformat — SVG optimizers (SVGO) may reformat the file after edits. This is expected and should not be reverted

Mermaid Diagrams (.mmd, embedded in markdown)

• Accents work natively in node labels: A[Qualité] --> B[Sécurité]
• For labels with special characters, use quotes: A["Clôture du projet"]
• Test rendering after adding accents — some Mermaid renderers may have issues with certain characters in edge labels

PlantUML Files (.puml)

• Accents work in labels and notes: :Vérification du périmètre;
• Use UTF-8 encoding — add @startuml without BOM
• Accents in participant names may require quoting: participant "Développeur GenAI" as Dev

Draw.io / diagrams.net Files (.drawio)

• These are XML files — accents work natively in value attributes
• Edit the XML directly or use the visual editor
• Watch for HTML-encoded entities that should be UTF-8 characters

CSV Files

• Ensure UTF-8 encoding (not Latin-1/ISO-8859-1)
• Accents in field values: "Qualité","Sécurité","Périmètre"
• Some spreadsheet tools may re-encode — verify encoding after export

JSON / YAML Files

• Accents work natively in string values: "rôle": "Développeur"
• JSON requires UTF-8 by specification
• YAML supports UTF-8 natively — no quoting needed for accented values

HTML Files

• Use UTF-8 encoding: <meta charset="UTF-8">
• Use actual UTF-8 characters, not HTML entities (é not é)
• Check <title>, <meta>, alt attributes, aria-label, and visible text

Generating New Files

When generating any new file that will contain French text:

1. Write with accents from the start — do not generate without accents and fix later
2. Use UTF-8 encoding for all file types
3. Apply the correct accents as you write — refer to the common patterns table above
4. Keep technical terms in English — do not translate universally used English terms
5. Validate before presenting — re-read your generated content for missing accents before showing it to the user

Important Guidelines

• Never remove accents — if unsure whether a word needs an accent, keep it
• Preserve technical terms in English — do not translate Sprint, Backlog, etc.
• Ask before bulk changes — present the list of fixes before applying them
• One pattern at a time — when using replace_all, fix one word pattern per edit to avoid unintended replacements
• Context matters — some words change meaning with/without accents (e.g., "ou" = or, "où" = where). Always consider context
• UTF-8 everywhere — always use UTF-8 encoding, never Latin-1 or other legacy encodings
• Generate correctly from the start — it's cheaper to write accents correctly the first time than to fix them after the fact