Laying out the letter

In formal letters it is normal to write your company name, above the address at the top of the page, on the left-hand side of the sheet.

The addressee's name and address should be inserted below your address on the right-hand side of the sheet. The name of the company is placed after the addressee's full name. The full forms should always be used. Abbreviations can be used on the envelope if the full form doesn't fit (M. for Monsieur; Mme for Madame and Mlle for Mademoiselle) Note that the full stop is only used after M.

The date comes after the addressee's name and is usually also on the right-hand side of the sheet: Paris, le 18 juillet 2002 In writing the date, the city where the letter is sent from always comes first, the day number is preceded by "le". Note also that in French, unlike in English, names of the month are not capitalized. The convention is to write dates: day-month-year.

Greetings

In formal letters whether you know the name of the person you are writing to or not: -To a man: Monsieur,
-To a woman: Madame, Mademoiselle,
-When you don't know if you're letter will be read by a man or a woman: Madame, Monsieur, Messieurs,
-To a lawyer: MaÎtre,

This opening appears on the left-hand side. Note the use of the comma, which is compulsory.
Note: when writing to a woman and when in doubt about her marital status, it is always better to use Madame rather than Mademoiselle.

For official certificates, such as attestations of employment, the opening usually is: À qui de droit (to whom it may concern).

In slightly less formal letters if you know the name of the addressee, you can also write: Cher monsieur Dupont, Chère madame Durand, which is slightly less formal.
In a business letter when you have established a good relationship with the addressee, cher/chère followed by the addressee's given name is appropriate: Cher Paul, Chère Laure,

In informal letters or when you know the addressee well, an opening following cher/chère or mon cher/ma chère is appropriate: Cher Paul, Chère Laure, Chers Laure et Paul, Chers tous, Ma chère Laure, Mon cher Papa,

Closing the Letter

If you read correspondence manuals in French you will probably be surprised at how many potential letter endings there are for formal correspondence. Modern practice is to use a limited number of endings and to keep them shorter and less formal than was formerly the case. The following are should be adequate for most situations.

Formal endings: In formal letters, the form of address chosen for the opening formula should be reflected in the closing formula, i.e. if you've started your letter with Madame, it should end with something like:
Veuillez agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées.
Dans l'attente de vous lire, je vous prie d'agréer, Messieurs, l'expression de mes sentiments distingués.
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments distingués Je vous adresse, Madame, Monsieur, mes salutations distinguées.
Je vous prie de croire, Madame, en nos sentiments dévoués.

Less formal endings: Salutations distinguées. Cordialement,

In friendly personal letters, the following are often used: Amicalement, Bien à vous, A bientôt, Avec toute mon affection, Grosses bises,

In letters to family members, endings are obviously freer, but some typical ones are: Grosses bises, Affectueusement, Je t'embrasse très fort, Bisous,

All of the examples above should be immediately followed by your signature.

Additional mentions at the end of a letter

N.B.: Nota Bene to stress an important point in the letter
P.S.: Post scriptum additional info you forgot to put in the letter or that has nothing to do with the rest of the content i.e. P.S. How's your daughter (after illness)?
P.J.: Pièce(s) jointe(s) if any other documents are sent with the letter i.e. a CV, a company brochure, a birth certificate etc.

Addressing the envelope

The address should be carefully written taking account the comments about laying out the letter made above.

If you want to include your return address on the envelope, this should be written on the back of the envelope after the word: Exp. (short for Expéditeur/-trice). An example would be along the lines of: Exp.: Mary O'Reilly, 867 Fifth Avenue, New York NY10022, USA.

Street names: the full street name is often abbreviated in correspondence, especially on the envelope. For example, Avenue can be written Av. and Boulevard Bd. e.g. 180, Av. du Gal Leclerc (180, Avenue du Général Leclerc). There is always a comma after the street number.

The zip code and the town should be written on the same line.

The country can be written either in full under the zip code or abbreviated with the official European abbreviations before the zip code followed by a trema as follows:
France: F-75008 Paris
Belgium: B-1410 Waterloo
Switzerland: CH-2000 Genève

Please refer to our general layout