[bitwize]

Two words: Académie Française, the governmental body which determines what is official "standard" French, and zealously guards the language against loanwords from other languages in an attempt to preserve a purely French French language.

[ur-whale]

> zealously guards the language

and which everyone in the country blissfully ignores.

[r00fus]

Yeah, the campaign for "courriel" was such a success!