How to Write an Email in French

Emails are a part of everyday life.

And there’s a right way and a wrong way to write one.

This is all the more true in France, where the art of formal French correspondence is highly valued.

Learning the subtle differences between English and French emails is useful for learning more vocabulary and for real-world French use.

In this post, I’ll show you how to write an email in French, and some practical language that can help you out along the way.

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Writing a French Email

French emails are structured similarly to American emails, with addresses, content in space-separated paragraphs, salutations and contact info.

1. The French Header and Subject

A French en-tête (header) begins with the sender’s coordonnées (contact info):

Prénom (first name) NOM (last name, usually in caps)

Intitulé du poste (job title)

Adresse (address)

This is followed by, farther down on the other side of the page, the recipient’s info:

À l’attention de (to the attention of) Monsieur/Madame LAST NAME

Nom de l’entreprise (company name)

Adresse (address)

2. How to Start an Email in French: The formule d’appel (roughly, “formal greeting”)

You start your email with a formule d’appel (formal salutation). This can be as simple as “Madame,” or “Monsieur,” if the recipient doesn’t know you, or “Cher Monsieur,/Chère Madame,” (“Dear Sir,/Dear Madam,”) if the recipient knows you.

If you’re sending the email to, say, two people, you can say “Madame, Monsieur,” (“Madam, Sir,”). Avoid using Mademoiselle (Miss/Ms.), because the marital situation of your recipient is irrelevant.

If you know the job title of the recipient, all the better. You can say, for example, “Madame la Directrice,” (“Madam Director,”) or “Monsieur le Professeur,” (“Professor,”), or even “Monsieur le Président de la République,” (“Mr. President,”).

Some special cases:

• “Maître,” (“Master,” although we say “Esquire,”) if you’re writing to a lawyer.

• “Docteur,” for a doctor.

• “Mon Général/Colonel/Commandant/etc.,” (“My general, etc.,”—here we might say “Sir,” or just “General,”) for an officer.

Remember to capitalize the formule d’appel and to end it with a comma.

If the person you are writing to is a close friend or family member and the tone of your email is casual, then you might opt for one of these greetings to start your informal email:

• “Salut [nom]!” (“Hey/Hello [name]!”)
• “Bonjour” (“Hello”/“Good morning”/“Good afternoon”)

3. Explaining the Purpose of Your Email

Following the formule d’appel, get to the point:

French	English
Je vous écris au sujet de...	I am writing to you about...
Suite à notre entretien du 4 octobre...	Following up on our interview on October 4th...
J'ai pensé vous écrire au sujet de...	I thought I would write to you about...
J'ai bien reçu votre courrier du 17 novembre...	I received your mail from November 17th...
Je vous propose ma candidature pour le poste...	I propose my candidacy for the position...
Je voudrais vous remercier pour...	I would like to thank you for...
Je voudrais vous informer au sujet de...	I would like to inform you about...
Je vous écris pour confirmer...	I am writing to you to confirm...

You get the idea. You’re immediately explaining the purpose of your email. “À la recherche d’un emploi” provides more detailed information about writing letters in French.

4. Giving Your Contact Information

Following the body of the email but before the closing remarks, I usually say something like…

“Vous pouvez me joindre au : 555-555-5555”

or

“Vous pouvez me joindre à: mail@mail.com”

(“You can reach me at…”)

…to stress that I can and want to be contacted, even if this information is in my header.

5. How to End an Email in French: The formule de politesse (salutation)

That’s right. We begin an email with a formule, and we end it with one! The formule de politesse ends your email with a tone of respect and consideration. Now is not the time to be creative. There’s a definite formula to follow:

“Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame la Directrice, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués.”

Here, I’m asking the (female) director to accept (not agree with) my “distinguished sentiments.” So basically it’s request, recipient + job title, proof of respect.

I could also say “Veuillez agréer” (“Please accept”), but that’s more of a commanding tone. There’s a reason why it’s called a formule; its structure is set in stone. Several good examples can be found here.

So contrary to what I said earlier, the formule de politesse is one way in which French and American email differ. Obviously you don’t need to do this for, say, letters or emails to your family or friends, in which case you could just say any of the following:

• “Je t’embrasse” (“Love”—not a literal translation),
• “Bisous” (“Kisses”),
• “Amitiés” (“Best wishes”)
• “À bientôt !” (“See you soon!”)
• “Sincèrement” (“Sincerely”),
• “Cordialement” (“Cordially”), 

Don’t forget your signature at the end.

When I realized all my formal French emails would be cast from the same mold, I wrote up a template including space for the header, contact info, formal greeting and a pre-packaged formule de politesse. That way I could just plug in new info and change the actual content. You can call that cheating, but it saves time!

The Adoption of Email in France

We probably like to think that tech is inherently Anglophone, and that the French were doing their own peculiar thing before computers reached their shores. But France made surprising contributions to the development of email.

Minitel

Long before US households set up email accounts through junk mail AOL diskettes, the French had a flourishing “internet” known as the Minitel, complete with an electronic message service.

Minitel, or Médium interactif par numérisation d’information téléphonique (roughly, “interactive medium by digitization of telephone information”—say that five times fast!), originally conceived as an alternative to paper phone directories, came to include news, home shopping, yellow pages, train schedules, banking, dating and of course messagerie (electronic messaging). 

In fact, that Minitel could even handle messagerie instantanée (instant messaging) was discovered by accident in the early ’80s. In 1981, a platform called Gretel offering services like weather, horoscopes, TV guides and a “letter box” was formed, but people weren’t skilled in using it, so Gretel created a way to send informative messages to users to help them. 

Legend has it that a child discovered the admin password and used Gretel to send his own instant messages. Gretel saw that this was popular, and the rest was history.

Other services sprung up as well, like theme-based salons de discussion (chat rooms) and the ever popular Minitel Rose for singles. See Libération and France24 for more detailed accounts of Minitel’s early days.

Email today: Popular Service Providers in France

The Internet as we know it eventually won out over Minitel, and France has several service and webmail providers today. Some of the top email providers in France are Orange (formerly France Télécom), Gmail, Outlook, SFR and Yahoo. Suffice it to say that the French are now enthusiastic email writers.

La Nétiquette

The practice of writing politely on the internet in France is called nétiquette.

Although we’re often taught that business correspondence is rigid in France, we shouldn’t think of the French as “by the book” drones. Yes, I said formal correspondence is highly valued by the French, but in practice, they’re just as busy as us, and they don’t always have time to write formal letters.

I’ve often sent professional letters in French diligently remembering my contact info, formal greeting and closing salutation, only to get informal, one-sentence messages in response.

Basically, the important thing to remember is this: Don’t do in a French email what you wouldn’t do in an English one. For example, that could include writing in all caps, using slang, etc. That said, I suggest following the guidelines covered above, even if your correspondent doesn’t do likewise, at least until the conversation gets up and running.

Tutoyer vs. Vouvoyer and Why It’s Important

In France, you address people in the second person using either tu (tutoyer) or vous (vouvoyer). Using tu implies intimacy and informality, whereas vous is more formal. Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly when to use tu or vous; you have to use judgment. I’ve been in situations where I used vous only to be told to use tu. Note, however, that the second person plural is always vous.

Although tutoiement (use of tu) is becoming more common in France, in formal emails, it’s best to err on the side of caution and use vous, at least until told otherwise, especially if you’re addressing someone older, a supervisor or someone you just met.

These can be a bit difficult to get used to as a non-native speaker, but you’ll pick it up by seeing and using them in context.

The best thing to do is have conversations with natives, either by meeting up with French-speaking friends or practicing with a native French tutor. If that’s not easy for you at the moment, seek out authentic French content online.

For example, you could try using an immersion program like FluentU, which offers a variety of French media with interactive subtitles to aid comprehension.

More Email and Letter Writing Vocab

Maybe the best benefit of analyzing French emails is learning a new set of vocabulary. Like in other areas of informatique (IT/computer science), emails constitute a battleground of imposed English words fighting with homegrown alternatives. By the way, if you haven’t done so, try setting your webmail or email client to French settings—you’ll subconsciously memorize all of this vocab!

Technical Email Vocab

French	English translation
Courrier électronique / email / mél / courriel	Email
Envoyer	To send
Supprimer	To delete
Annuler	To cancel
Spam / pourriel / courrier indésirable	Spam
Adresse électronique / email / courriel	Email address
Boîte de réception	Inbox
Boîte d'envoi	Outbox
Brouillon	Draft
Imprimer	To print
Enregistrer	To save
Ci-joint	Attached
Télécharger	To download
Mettre en ligne / télécharger	To upload

General Letter Writing Vocab

French	English translation
Bas de page	Footer
Marge	Margin
Paragraphe	Paragraph
Orthographe	Spelling
Phrase	Sentence
Mise en page	Page layout
Interligne	Spacing
Interligne double	Double spacing
Interligne simple	Single spacing
Police	Font

Example Emails

Now that you’ve learned how to write an email in French, let’s put all of your knowledge together in two example emails:

Formal email example:

French

English translation

Cher Monsieur Laurent, Je vous écris au sujet du nouveau poste annoncé dans notre entreprise. Je voudrais vous remercier pour avoir postulé pour le poste. Suite à notre appel téléphonique de la semaine dernière, nous aimerions vous inviter à un entretien le 20 septembre. Veuillez répondre à cet e-mail avant le 10 septembre pour confirmer votre présence. Vous pouvez me rejoindre à : mail@mail.com. Je vous prie d’agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués. Jean Monet

Dear Mr Laurent, I am writing to you regarding the new position advertised at our company. I would like to thank you for applying for the position. Following up on our phone call last week, we would like to invite you for an interview on September 20. Please reply to this email before September 10 to confirm your attendance. You can reach me at: mail@mail.com. Yours sincerely, John Monet

Informal email example:

French	English translation
Salut, Pierre ! Comment vas-tu ? J'espère que tu vas bien et que tu te plais dans ton nouveau travail à Marseille ! Je n'arrive pas à croire que cela fait un an qu'on a eu notre diplôme ! Je viens d'emménager à Aix-en-Provence. Ce serait super de te voir bientôt ! Amitiés, Charlotte	Hey, Pierre! How are you? I hope you're well and enjoying your new job in Marseille! I can't believe it's been a year since we graduated! I've just moved to Aix-en-Provence. It would be great to see you soon! Best wishes, Charlotte

 

Learning how the French write emails is just one more way you can contextualize your French skills.

Understanding emails gives you practice in technical vocabulary, composing advanced sentences and letter writing in general.

If you have a French penpal, now you can impress them with your correspondence skills!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)