MORE TU AND VOUS IN POLITICS.

MORE TU AND VOUS IN POLITICS. About a month ago I wrote here about how Nicholas Sarkozy flummoxed a senior minister who is ten years older by addressing him as “tu.” A very good article in the Financial Times for the weekend of June 30/July 1 by Matthew Engel discusses further adventures with tu and vous by M. Sarkozy. the pattern seems to be that M. Sarkozy favors more informality at the ministerial level and more formality elsewhere. He has ordered that students should use vous to teachers and suggested that teachers use vous to older students. In dealing with urban riots as interior minister, he said that police should show respect to demonstrators by using vous. When Sarkozy met for the first time with Chancellor Merkel, he addressed her with tu. She came back at him with the formal Sie, rather than the informal du.