Is it necessary to use guillemets when quoting in French, or may one use English-style doublequotes?

Question

Many French writers and publications will use guillemets when quoting in French, e.g.

Il a dit qu'il « était le meilleur joueur du monde » hier soir.

But there are also major publications such as Le Monde.fr who use doublequotes; for example, here's a snippet of an article from today:

Les deux portraits étaient légendés par ces mots : “Choc de titans”.

So, how commonly are double quotes used in French writing, when quoting? Is it only in certain publications like Le Monde.fr that they are used, or is it more commonplace? Are guillemets ever used outside of France?

Additional query: In English, single-quotes are also a valid replacement for doublequotes (they are more typically used in British English), and so the following two phrases are the same:

He said, “I want it soon” to me.

He said, ‘I want it soon’ to me.

Can single-quotes be used in French in the same way that doublequotes are?

Answer 1

In french the official ponctuation for quoting is … French guillemets :

« »

The double quotes are commonly used because there are generally more easier to do on keyboard (even if a good text editor will automatically translate " to « ). Nevertheless the double quote can be used inside French guillemets to add a level of quotation, for example :

« Patrick a dit : “Bonjour” »

Tips :

« = alt + 0171
» = alt + 0187

A good wikipedia page (in French) about guillemets.

Answer 2

The only accepted form of quote in France is the guillemet angulaire double or double chevron, usually called simply guillemet. The guillemets are oriented with the point out, and there is an unbreakable thin space inside. The French Wikipedia article explains the usage.

« texte entre guillemets »

In Unicode, the characters are U+00AB «​ left-pointing double angle quotation mark and U+00BB »​ right-pointing double angle quotation mark. The unbreakable thin space is usually U+00A0   unbreakable space (with the expectation that the word processing software will adjust the width of the space as required).

While my first sentence above may sound overly prescriptive, it is the rule followed by all serious publications. I have never seen a book printed in France that used another forme of quote (apart from books published in that brief period when traditional manual publishing processes went into disuse and computers were not quite up to the task yet — these books typically have other typographical issues such as a monospace font and the occasional hand-drawn symbol).

Very occasionally, American-style “double quotation marks” are used for second-level quotes (quotes inside quotes). However the dominant usage does not typeset quotes at different levels differently.

Il a dit « Elle a dit « oui » ».

You will find a lot of "ASCII quotes" in informal typography, especially on the Internet. This usage is considered unprofessional. Many word processors automatically translate ASCII quotes to proper guillemets when set up for French typesetting.

The usage in some other French-speaking countries is different. Swiss usage, for example, is a blend of German and French usage: French (outward-pointing) guillemets, but with no space.

En Suisse, on dit «huitante».

Answer 3

In this computer-ruled world, it is easier to produce " than « or » on a keyboard, therefore, often, even French newspapers like Le Monde use English doublequotes instead of proper French guillemets in their Internet version. I'm not a big reader of the paper version so I cannot speak for it, but I'm kinda sure that it uses French guillemets, as it should be.

In French, quoting should be done with guillemets. It's only a bit more difficult to produce on a computer than doublequotes, hence the habit to substitute them.

Additional answer: absolutely not. An apostrophe ' is never used as a quote in proper French. It is very rare to see it in practice.