Toubon Law

The Toubon Law (full name: law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language) is a law of the French government mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other contexts.

The law does not concern private, non-commercial communications, such as non-commercial web publications by private bodies. It does not concern books, films, public speeches, and other forms of communications not constituting commercial activity. However, the law mandates the use of the French language in all broadcast audiovisual programs, with exceptions for musical works and "original version" films. Broadcast musical works are subject to quota rules under a related law whereby a minimum percentage of the songs on radio and television must be in the French language.

The law takes its common name from Jacques Toubon, who was Minister of Culture when it was passed, and who proposed the law to the National Assembly of France. A nickname is Loi Allgood – "Allgood" is a morpheme-for-morpheme translation of "Toubon" into English ("All Good" being a translation of "Tout bon") – as the law can largely be considered to have been enacted in reaction to the increasing usage of English in advertisements and other areas in France.

One broad provision of the law applying to workplaces is that "any document that contains obligations for the employee or provisions whose knowledge is necessary for the performance of one's work must be written in French." Among other things, this means that computer software developed outside France must have its user interface and instruction manuals translated into French to be legally used by companies in France. The law includes an exception that "these provisions do not apply to documents coming from abroad", but this exception has been interpreted narrowly by the appellate courts. For example, in 2006 a French subsidiary of a US company was given a hefty fine for delivering certain highly technical documents and software interfaces to its employees in the English language only, and this was upheld by the appellate court.

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