Ripping up the rulebook on swear words?

French President Emmanuel Macron has had strong words to say about France’s unvaccinated this morning.

In an interview with Le Parisien the president said:

Un Président ne devrait pas dire ça. Le garant de l'unité de la nation s'obstine à la diviser et assume vouloir faire des non-vaccinés des citoyens de seconde zone. Emmanuel Macron est indigne de sa fonction.
En avril, je serai la Présidente de tous les Français. pic.twitter.com/MKvaxsneec

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) January 4, 2022

So, there’s a new word for my French vocab – emmerder – to piss off.

J’ai très envie de les emmerder! I like that sentence.

The story is leading Euronews this morning with that translation IN THE INTRO!

Now, during my BBC career I became the go-to person to ask about the use of swear words in stories. This happened so often that I had a list of the most offensive swear words laminated on my desk. Our general rule of thumb was if it was absolutely essential to the telling of the story then it should be used but not in the intro or the top four paragraphs. This is because there is no watershed on the internet and a lot of children read the news site.

But France clearly has different rules and is comfortable putting strong language right there in the intro. Obviously more Guardian than BBC.