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Académie Française

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The Académie Française (French Academy) is a body founded in 1570, when King Charles IX granted the charter of an "academy of Music and Poetry" to the poet Antoine de Baïf and the musician, [[Gourville, who named it "Académie Française." On February 10, 1635, Armand Cardinal Richelieu (minister of Louis XIII) expanded it into a national academy for the artistic elite.

The Académie is the official French authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power and are even sometimes disregarded by governmental authorities. It also encourages the use of French worldwide and awards literary prizes.

As French culture and language have come under increasing pressure with the widespread availability of English media, the Académie has tried to prevent the anglicisation of the French language. It is as a direct result of a decision of the Académie that the French word for "computer" is "ordinateur" and that the field of study dealing with computers is known as "informatique."

The Académie itself is composed of forty members, known as the immortels (immortals) because they serve for life. Famous current and former immortels include author Victor Hugo, author and director Marcel Pagnol, poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, playwright Eugène Ionesco, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, and physicist Louis-Victor de Broglie.

The Académie is also charged with publishing an official dictionary of the French language. It has done so in 1694, 1718, 1740, 1762, 1798, 1835, 1878, and in 1932-1935. The Académie continues work on the most recent (ninth) 1992 edition of the dictionary, of which the first volume (A to Enzyme) appeared in 1992, and the second volume (Éocène to Mappemonde) appeared in 2000.

Members of the Académie Française

The Académie has 40 seats. Each member is elected to a specific seat, when one has become vacant. The list below gives the names of the academicians by seat number.

Current members

  1. Marc Fumaroli, elected 1995
  2. Jacqueline Worms de Romilly, elected 1988
  3. Michel Déon, elected 1978
  4. Alain Decaux, elected 1979
  5. Florence Delay, elected 2000
  6. Gabriel de Broglie, elected 2001
  7. Jean d'Ormesson, elected 1973
  8. Pierre Messmer, elected 1999, senior bureaucrat and politician
  9. René Rémond, elected 1998
  10. Hector Bianciotti, elected 1996
  11. Jean-Denis Bredin, elected 1989
  12. Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, elected 1995
  13. vacant
  14. Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, elected 1990, historian
  15. Frédéric Vitoux, elected 2001
  16. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, elected 2003
  17. Érik Orsenna, elected 1998
  18. Michel Serres, elected 1990
  19. Pierre Moinot, elected 1982
  20. Angelo Rinaldi, elected 2001
  21. Félicien Marceau, elected 1975
  22. René de Obaldia, elected 1999
  23. Pierre Rosenberg, elected 1995
  24. Jean-François Revel, elected 1997
  25. Jean Bernard, elected 1975
  26. Jean-Marie Rouart, elected 1997
  27. Pierre Nora, elected 2001
  28. Henri Troyat, elected 1959
  29. Claude Lévi-Strauss, elected 1973
  30. Maurice Druon, elected 1966
  31. Jean Dutourd, elected 1978
  32. vacant
  33. Michel Mohrt, elected 1985
  34. François Cheng, elected 2002
  35. Yves Pouliquen, elected 2001
  36. Jean-François Deniau, elected 1992
  37. Robert-Ambroise-Marie Carré, elected 1975
  38. François Jacob, elected 1996
  39. Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, elected 1986
  40. Pierre-Jean Rémy, elected 1988

External link

Académie's website (in French)

Académie Française Add topic