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French word of the day: Assouplissement

The Local France
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French word of the day: Assouplissement
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond"

Because it's likely to make a difference to your daily life.

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Why do I need to know assouplissement?

Because it might be what you are longing for.

What does it mean?

The word means an easing or a relaxation of something and comes from souple - flexible.

It's most commonly used to mean a relaxation of rules or conditions, but can also be used in the physical sense so if you're looking for a stretch workout that will make you more flexible, you could search for les meilleurs exercises d'assouplissment.

It can also be used in more specific contexts such as assouplissement quantitatif - quantitative easing.

Over the past two years of pandemic assouplissement has been used a lot as various Covid-related rules were relaxed. Its opposite is durcissement - a hardening or toughening.

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Use it like this

J'espère vraiment qu'il y aura un assouplissement de la règle de 1km, ça me rend fou de ne pas pouvoir faire une bonne course - I really hope there will be a relaxation of the 1km exercise rule, I'm going crazy without a proper run 

Pensez-vous que Macron va annoncer un assouplissement de confinement la semaine prochaine ? - Do you think Macron will announce a relaxation of lockdown rules next week?

Au retour du congé parental, les parents auront le droit de demander un assouplissement de leurs conditions de travail - On their return from parental leave, parents will have the right to request flexible working conditions

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