French culture minister Felur Pellerin, who has called fro the country to stop blockading English words from entering the French language . France should stop blocking English phrases from entering their language and embrace new words from other nations, the country's culture minister has said. Fleur Pellerin, who was born in South Korea and also speaks fluent English and German, says the French language is not frozen and that the country should be thankful for English words 'enriching' their lexicon. The government's stance marks a dramatic break from France's previous rigid defence of its language, especially from English words entering it. Miss Pellerin said: 'The French language is not frozen. A language is always evolving. 'Some languages - like English today, or Italian in the past - have been particularly generous in offering hundreds of new words to French. 'French is not in danger and my responsibility as minister is not to erect ineffective barriers against languages but to give all our citizens the means to make it live on.' Current French legislation states that all public advertising is in French or at least includes a translation of non-French terms. There was also a campaign to stop terms such as 'e-mail' 'challenge' and 'marketing' from creeping into the French language. But many French linguists have welcomed the minister's comments. Alain Rey, author of a dictionary on the history of French and a member of a Commission on French Terminology, said attempts to stop the adoption of some commonly used words were ridiculous. He pointed out that the word 'challenge', for instance, in fact originally came from Old French ('chalonge') before being taken up in English. 'Passing laws (against loan words) is to tilt at windmills,' Mr Rey said. A woman holds open a copy of the 2015 edition of the French 'Petit Larousse' dictionary. Current French legislation states that all public advertising is in French or at least includes a translation of non-French terms . Miss Pellerin's comments come just months after she admitted that she hasn't read a single book over the past two years, despite being appointed culture minister. To add to her embarrassment, she was also unable to say on a TV show which book by France's Nobel Literature Prize winner Patrick Modiano was her favourite, just minutes after having said she had lunched with the author. Only two weeks beforehand, she had hailed Modiano as representing the 'influence and vitality of French literature in the eyes of the world.'
Fleur Pellerin says French should stop trying to block English words . Adds that the country should embrace new words and be thankful for them . Stance marks a dramatic break from France's previous defence of language . Current legislation states that all public advertising must be in French .