The Associated Press, the largest wires service in the world, has apologized after it was ridiculed for warning journalists against referring to "the French," as it could be dehumanizing. The AP Stylebook Twitter account had recommended writers avoid using "the" in phrases like "the disabled, the poor, and the French".
The French Embassy responded by briefly changing its name to the "Embassy of Frenchness in the United States". "We just wondered what the alternative to the French would be," Pascal Confavreux, the embassy spokesman, told the New York Times. "I mean, really."
The AP Stylebook is considered one of the best style guides for journalists, especially in the US. The AP tweet received more than 20 million views and 18,000 retweets before being deleted. It was widely mocked on social media.
The writer Sarah Haider joked that there was "nothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French" and that a less offensive term was "suffering from Frenchness". Ian Bremmer, a political scientist, suggested "people experiencing Frenchness" as an alternative.
After it deleted the tweet, the AP Stylebook said its mention of French people was "inappropriate" but that it "did not intend to offend". "Writing French people, French citizens, etc., is good. But 'the' terms for any people can sound dehumanizing and imply a monolith rather than diverse individuals," it wrote.
