Cardinal Richelieu founded the Académie française in 1635, under the reign of Louis XIII.

Its 40 members defend the French language: their unending effort to define words, with a common meaning and spelling, contribute to national unity.

The Académie française enjoys special prestige among the honor societies that French culture has produced. It has only 40 members. Membership is permanent; “academicians” are even nicknamed “immortals”. A new member is elected by the sitting members, but anyone can request membership. Members are entitled to wear a green outfit suggestive of what a bullfighter might wear, and to bear a ceremonial sword (religious figures are exempted from sword-bearing).

“Academicians” historically have been a diverse group. But given the society’s mission to defend language, many of its members have been writers, especially illustrious writers of the day. For this observer, as literature has increasingly become equated with entertainment, the number and stature of writers in the Académie française has declined. And the decline of writers has led to the ascendancy of another group: politicians.

Simone Veil

The member most recently inducted is Simone Veil, a French politician who has long enjoyed popularity or celebrity. The back story: deported from France to Auschwitz at age 16, Simon Veil went on to a career in the civil service and politics, culminating as health minister in the mid-70s. Acting later on the European stage, Simon Veil became president of the European Parliament. Simon Veil is a woman accustomed to receiving honors.

Simone Veil’s best-known political action was her support for legalized abortion; the law that made abortion legal in France carried her name. In mainstream French discourse, legalized abortion falls under the umbrella of feminism or women’s rights. A prime example of the cultural divide that can separate Americans and French, abortion rights aren’t polemical. The issue isn’t contentious; it’s closed.

I asked people whether they thought Simone Veil’s induction to the Académie française had anything to do with abortion, and no one in my informal poll thought it did. My American eyes did glimpse one small sticker, affixed to a street sign (of a parent and child walking together), by an anti-abortion group that criticized “the entry of the culture of death” at the Académie française.