French grammar · Beginner
Accented Capitals in French: Why À and É Keep Their Marks
French capitals keep their accents: À, É, È, Ê, Ç, Ù, Ô, Î. The Académie française treats an accent as part of a word's spelling rather than as an optional mark, so dropping it from a capital is an error and not a stylistic choice. The habit of leaving them off comes from the limits of old printing and typewriters.
Il a passé un an aux États-Unis.
He spent a year in the United States.
What it is
You will see French signs, headlines, and menus with bare capitals, and it is easy to conclude that accents disappear when a letter grows. They do not. The accent belongs to the letter in the same way as its shape does, and the Académie française has been explicit about this for decades. What you are seeing is a leftover from a period when metal type and typewriter keyboards simply had no accented capitals available.
À VENDRE, ÉTATS-UNIS, ÇA VA — For sale, United States, How are you
How to spot it
If the lower-case spelling of a word carries an accent, the capital carries it too. There is no separate rule to learn, only a habit to unlearn.
- À demain. — See you tomorrow.
- États généraux — Estates General
- Ça ne fait rien. — It doesn't matter.
- Êtes-vous prêt ? — Are you ready?
Initialisms are the one genuine exception: ONU, CEE, and PDG are written without accents.
Accented Capitals Quick Reference
The accented capitals you will actually need
| Capital | Where it turns up | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| À | the preposition at the start of a sentence or sign | À louer | To let |
| É | any word beginning with é | École primaire | Primary school |
| È | mostly in names | Ève | Eve |
| Ê | words and names with a circumflex | Être ou ne pas être | To be or not to be |
| Ç | before a, o, or u | Ça suffit | That's enough |
| Ô | names, place names, and invocations | Ô temps, suspends ton vol | O time, suspend your flight |
| Î | in place names and a few words | Île-de-France | the Paris region |
| Œ | the ligature, capitalised too | Œuvres complètes | Complete works |
Common Accented Capitals Examples in French
Accented capitals in the places they come up:
At the Start of a Sentence
- À bientôt, et merci pour tout.
- See you soon, and thanks for everything.
- Étant donné la situation, nous annulons.
- Given the situation, we're cancelling.
- Ça m'est égal.
- It's all the same to me.
- Êtes-vous déjà venu ici ?
- Have you been here before?
These are the cases where an accented capital is unavoidable, because the word itself begins with the accented letter.
Words Written All in Capitals
- ÉTATS-UNIS
- UNITED STATES
- À VENDRE
- FOR SALE
- ÉCOLE PRIMAIRE
- PRIMARY SCHOOL
- DÉFENSE D'ENTRER
- NO ENTRY
Signs and headlines are exactly where accents get dropped in practice, and exactly where they are still required.
Where the Accent Changes the Word
- OÙ EST LA SORTIE ?
- WHERE IS THE EXIT? (ou without the accent means or)
- UN PLAT SALÉ
- A SAVOURY DISH (sale without the accent means dirty)
- UN PÊCHEUR BRETON
- A BRETON FISHERMAN (pécheur would be a sinner)
- IL EST RETARDÉ
- HE HAS BEEN DELAYED (retarde without the accent is a present tense)
These are the pairs that make the rule practical rather than decorative: without the accent the reader has to guess.
Names and Proper Nouns
- Émile Zola
- Émile Zola
- Élise et Étienne
- Élise and Étienne
- Éditions Gallimard
- Gallimard Publishing
- Île-de-France et Île-Rousse
- the Paris region and Île-Rousse in Corsica
Leaving the accent off someone's name is closer to a spelling mistake than a typographic shortcut.
Why the Accents Stay
The rule is short, and the reasons behind it explain why you will nonetheless see it broken constantly.
An Accent Is Part of the Spelling
French accents are not stress marks or decoration. They distinguish sounds, as in é against è, and they distinguish whole words, as in a against à. Removing one from a capital removes information from the word.
Élève, élevé, élève : trois mots différents.
Pupil, raised, raises: three different words.
Accent = spelling, not styling.
The Omission Is a Technical Leftover
Hot-metal typesetting and mechanical typewriters had limited sorts and keys, and accented capitals were the first thing to be sacrificed. Digital typesetting removed the constraint but the habit outlived it, which is why the mistake is so widespread in print.
Les vieilles affiches portent encore A VENDRE sans son accent.
Old posters still read A VENDRE with the accent missing.
A printing limit, not a rule.
Accents Resolve Real Ambiguity
In all capitals the accent is often the only thing separating two words. A headline reading UN HOMME TUE says a man kills, while UN HOMME TUÉ says a man killed. Newspapers take this seriously for good reason.
UN HOMME TUÉ dans un accident
A MAN KILLED in an accident
The accent carries meaning.
Initialisms Are the Exception
Acronyms and abbreviations formed from initials drop their accents by convention: ONU for Organisation des Nations unies, CEE, PDG, SNCF. Once an acronym is pronounced as a word and written in lower case, the accents can return.
L'ONU siège à New York.
The UN is based in New York.
Initials lose their accents.
The Ligatures Capitalise Too
Œ and Æ are single letters rather than pairs, so they have their own capital forms. Œuvre becomes ŒUVRE, not OEUVRE, although the two-letter spelling is common and widely tolerated.
ŒUVRES COMPLÈTES DE MOLIÈRE
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MOLIÈRE
Πis one letter, capital included.
Common Mistakes with Accented Capitals
Incorrect: A DEMAIN — SEE YOU TOMORROW
Correct: À DEMAIN — SEE YOU TOMORROW
Without its accent, A is the third-person form of avoir rather than the preposition à. On a handwritten sign the difference is the whole meaning.
Incorrect: Etats-Unis — United States
Correct: États-Unis — United States
The word is état and the accent stays when the e is capitalised. This is probably the single most commonly mis-typed accented capital in French.
Incorrect: Ca va ? — How are you?
Correct: Ça va ? — How are you?
The cedilla is what keeps the c soft in front of a. Without it, Ca is read with a hard k sound, so the word is no longer ça at all.
Incorrect: OU EST LA SORTIE ? — WHERE IS THE EXIT?
Correct: OÙ EST LA SORTIE ? — WHERE IS THE EXIT?
Ou means or and où means where. In all capitals the grave accent is the only thing distinguishing them, which is exactly why it cannot be dropped.
How to Type Accented Capitals
The main practical obstacle is keyboard access, and every system has a way in once you know where to look.
macOS and iOS
Hold Option, press the accent key, release, then type the capital. On a phone, press and hold the letter and slide to the accented version.
- À
- Option and ` then Shift-A
- É
- Option and e then Shift-E
- Ê
- Option and i then Shift-E
- Ç
- Option and Shift-C directly
The accent key press produces nothing visible on its own, which makes it look as though it has failed.
Windows and Linux
On Windows, hold Alt and type the four-digit code on the numeric keypad. On Linux, use the compose key followed by the accent and the letter.
- À
- Alt and 0192 on the numeric keypad
- É
- Alt and 0201
- Ç
- Alt and 0199
- Ù
- Alt and 0217
In Microsoft Word the shortcut Ctrl and ` followed by the letter works on any layout, keypad or not.
The word-processor shortcut
Type the word in lower case with its accents, then apply capitals through formatting. Modern software keeps the accents when it changes the case.
- école → ÉCOLE
- school, typed lower case then capitalised
- à vendre → À VENDRE
- for sale, typed lower case then capitalised
- œuvre → ŒUVRE
- work, with the ligature preserved
This is the quickest route for a whole headline, and it avoids hunting for individual key combinations.
Accented Capitals FAQs
- Do French capital letters need accents?
- Yes. The Académie française is unambiguous: the accent is part of the word's spelling and applies to capitals as much as to lower case. So it is À bientôt, États-Unis, and ÇA VA, even though you will often see them printed without.
- Why do I see so many French signs without accents on capitals?
- Because metal type and typewriters had no accented capitals, printers left them off, and the habit stuck. It is a technical accident that turned into a convention, and it is still visible on shop fronts and old posters.
- How do I type a capital A with an accent?
- On a Mac, hold Option, press the backtick, release, then press Shift-A to get À. On Windows, hold Alt and type 0192 on the numeric keypad. Alternatively type à in lower case and let your software capitalise it.
- Are there any words where the accent on a capital really matters?
- Plenty. UN HOMME TUE means a man kills while UN HOMME TUÉ means a man killed; OU means or while OÙ means where; SALE means dirty while SALÉ means salted. In all capitals the accent is often the only distinguishing mark.
- Do acronyms keep their accents?
- No, and this is the one accepted exception. Initialisms are written without accents: ONU, CEE, SNCF, PDG. If an acronym becomes an ordinary word spelt in lower case, the accents come back with it.