HOW DO YOU SAY “CLOUD COMPUTING” IN FRENCH?

HOW DO YOU SAY “CLOUD COMPUTING” IN FRENCH? An article by Max Colchester in the Wall Street Journal describes the French government’s efforts to find a French phrase to replace the English phrase “cloud computing.” The task is made difficult by the fact that the word “nuage” (“cloud”) evokes associations from the phrase “dans les nuages” which means “distracted.” Officially approving a word in France requires a lot of bureaucracy and can take years. The rules are governed by the General Delegation for the French Language and the Languages of France. Each government ministry has at least one terminology committee attached to it. Then approval is needed from the General commission of Terminology and Neology. Then approval is needed from the Academie Francaise, and finally approval is needed from the French finance minister.