France Is Banning The Term Esports Among Other Anglicised Gaming Words

thegamer.com:

France likes to make sure French remains unsullied by the foreign language of English, which of course originated from its neighbour a short distance across the sea, even if English itself received a large amount of influence and inspiration from French. Nowadays, since English (especially the American kind) is a language that's dominant around the world, many of the terms that are invented in English often make their way into other languages.

But France is saying 'non'! As reported in The Guardian, French authorities are updating their rules on the use of English video game jargon. Words such as streamer and esports are being sanctioned as officials try to preserve the purity of francais.

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Now, "pro-gamer" will become "joueur professionnel", which is a more straightforward translation, but "streamer" is a little more convoluted as "joueur-animateur en direct". France's culture ministry told reporters that its video games sector, which includes big players such as Ubisoft, is rife with anglicisms that could be a "barrier to understanding" for non-gamers.

However, the new rules should mainly apply to government workers only, and most French people will be able to continue to use whichever words they like. French officials however will have to pay attention and use terms like "jeu video en nuage" for cloud gaming, and "jeu video de competition" for esports.

Games industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls pointed out that these language riles apply to government officials only, since the aim is to make games more easily understood for the broader population. "None of these will be widely adopted", he predicted, for the new terms.

For background, France has