You wrote a perfect sentence. Then you stared at the greeting for eleven minutes. Bonjour? Madame? Madame, Monsieur? Or the terrifying Cordialement, which sounds like something a notary would say at a funeral.
French email etiquette is not decoration. It is signalling, and getting it wrong reads as either cold or overfamiliar. Here is the whole system, in order.
What you will get from this guide
- The exact greeting, body and sign-off sequence French colleagues expect
- Vouvoiement rules that stop accidental rudeness
- Copy-paste templates for requests, follow-ups and apologies
The Skeleton of a French Business Email
French professional email follows a fixed choreography. Skip a step and the message feels abrupt, even when the words are polite.
Six slots. Fill them all, every time. This is not stiffness — it is the grammar of politeness.
Greetings: Choose One and Do Not Blend
French greetings are forgiving once you know the tiers. The mistake is inventing hybrids like Bonjour Madame Dupont in an email to a stranger.
Two rules. In a formal email the greeting ends with a comma, and the next line starts with a capital. And never use Salut in writing unless you would text that person about weekend plans.
Vouvoiement: The Rule That Saves You
Tu versus vous is the single biggest risk in a French business email. Getting it wrong is not a grammar slip. It is a small social incident.
The golden rule: you may offer tu, but you may never take it. If a client writes tu to you, mirroring it is usually acceptable in France — but in many Belgian, Swiss and African French business contexts, staying on vous is safer. When in doubt, vous.
Opening and Closing Formulas That Work
French has stock phrases for every move. Use them. Native speakers read originality here as uncertainty.
Note the trap. Cordialement is the workhorse and works almost everywhere. The long formule de politesse is reserved for genuinely formal correspondence — using it for a routine internal note sounds like a legal notice.
Three Templates You Can Steal Today
Copy these, swap the brackets, and send. All use vous.
Making a request
Following up politely
Apologising for a delay
That is the entire skill. Structure plus stock phrases, reused without shame.
Write French emails without eleven-minute staring contests
Grammar is rarely the problem — register is. A self-paced B1 course with an AI voice tutor drills the phrases real French offices actually expect, so you send and forget.
Take the French course →Create a free accountMistakes That Cost You Credibility
Small slips, big impressions. These are the ones French colleagues notice.
The punctuation one is genuinely French-specific. In French typography a space precedes !, ?, ;, : and the guillemets « ». Miss it and your text looks hand-typed in a hurry.
Practice That Actually Transfers
Reading templates is not learning them. Do this instead.
By week four you will produce a correct business email in under ten minutes. That is the B1 workplace benchmark, and it is exactly where DELF B1 writing tasks live.
From translating in your head to writing on autopilot
French business writing is a set of moves, not a talent. Learn them with an AI voice tutor, get corrected, and stop dreading the Reply button.
Start with a free account →Create a free accountFrequently Asked Questions
Is Bonjour too informal for a business email? No. Bonjour is standard and safe in modern French professional writing. What matters is what follows: use Madame or Monsieur, never only a first name with a stranger.
Which sign-off is best in French? Cordialement is the safe default for almost every professional email. Reserve the long formal formulas for official or legal correspondence.
Do I always use vous in a french business email? Yes, by default. You may offer tu only when the other person explicitly invites it. Let the senior or client side make the first move.
How do I handle gender in formal French formulas? Use the parenthetical form, reconnaissant(e), when you do not know the recipient's gender, or rephrase the sentence to avoid the adjective entirely.
References & Further Reading
- Académie française — guidance on formal correspondence and formulaic politeness
- France Éducation international — DELF B1 professional and written production descriptors
- Alliance Française — business French course frameworks
- LanguageSkills.net — self-paced French courses including workplace writing modules
- Office québécois de la langue française — French business writing and typography guidance