The government in France has a branch whose job it is to defend the purity and proper usage of the French language.The Académie Française was created in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII.It has forty members, known as ‘immortals’, who hold office for life, and the body is the chief authority on the French language and publishes an official dictionary.

Article 24 of the statutes of the Académie Française states that “The principal function of the Académie is to work, with all possible care and diligence, to give clear rules to our language and to render it pure, eloquent and capable of treating arts and science.”