Breakdown of Dans une société libre, chacun a le droit de choisir la personne qu'il ou elle aime.
Questions & Answers about Dans une société libre, chacun a le droit de choisir la personne qu'il ou elle aime.
In this kind of expression, French normally uses dans rather than en to mean in/within a type of society:
- dans une société libre = in a free society (within the framework of such a society)
En is often used:
- with countries/feminine places: en France, en ville
- with some abstract situations: en liberté, en sécurité
But with société in this general, abstract sense, the natural preposition is dans.
En une société libre is not idiomatic here.
Une société libre means a free society in general, any society that is free. It’s a generic idea.
If you said la société libre, it would sound like you are talking about:
- one specific, already-identified free society, or
- “the free society” as if it were a unique, defined entity
The English sentence “In a free society…” also uses the indefinite article “a”, so une is the natural match here.
Chacun is a singular pronoun meaning each person, everyone (taken one by one).
chacun = each one / each person
- Chacun a le droit… = Each person has the right…
tout le monde = everybody / everyone (collective)
- Tout le monde a le droit… = Everybody has the right…
chaque is a determiner that must go before a noun:
- chaque personne a le droit… = each person has the right…
So you could say:
- Chacun a le droit…
- Chaque personne a le droit…
- Tout le monde a le droit…
All are correct, but chacun emphasizes “each individual” as a grammatical singular.
Because chacun is grammatically singular.
Even though it refers to multiple people in reality, French treats chacun like each one:
- Chacun a le droit… (singular: each one has…)
- Not: Chacun ont le droit… (incorrect)
This is the same in English with “each person has,” not “each person have.”
Avoir le droit de + infinitive literally means to have the right to (do something), in a legal, moral, or social sense:
- chacun a le droit de choisir… = each person has the right to choose…
Pouvoir focuses more on capability or permission:
- chacun peut choisir… = each person can/may choose…
Both are possible, but:
- avoir le droit de emphasizes a recognized right or freedom
- pouvoir is broader and less explicitly about rights
The standard structure is:
- avoir le droit de + infinitif
So you say:
- le droit de choisir
- le droit de voter
- le droit de travailler
Using à here (le droit à choisir) is not correct in this construction.
You can have le droit à [nom] in some expressions (e.g. le droit à l’éducation), but with a verb infinitive it’s de, not à.
La personne is gender-neutral in meaning (though grammatically feminine). It just means the person.
If the sentence used l’homme or la femme, it would specify a gender:
- l’homme qu’il aime = the man he loves
- la femme qu’il aime = the woman he loves
By using la personne, the sentence stays general: the person loved can be any gender. That fits with the idea of everyone having the right to choose whom they love, without specifying gender.
Traditional French would often use a generic masculine pronoun only:
- la personne qu’il aime = the person he loves (or “they love” in generic sense)
However, modern usage sometimes explicitly includes both genders to be more inclusive:
- qu’il ou elle aime = that he or she loves
So the writer is deliberately avoiding a purely masculine generic. Grammatically, qu’il aime alone would be correct French, but less explicitly inclusive from today’s perspective.
This is a case of elision in French: when que comes before a word starting with a vowel or mute h, it drops its final e and takes an apostrophe:
- que il → qu’il
- que elle → qu’elle
- que on → qu’on
So:
- la personne qu’il aime = la personne que il aime (spoken) → written as qu’il
Que and qui are both relative pronouns, but they play different roles:
- qui is the subject of the verb that follows
- que is the direct object of the verb that follows
In la personne qu’il ou elle aime:
- la personne is the thing being loved (direct object of aime)
- il/elle is the subject of aime
So:
- que stands for la personne as the object → qu’il aime = whom he/she loves
If la personne were the subject of the following verb, you would use qui:
- la personne qui aime la liberté = the person who loves freedom
Grammatically, aime here is the present indicative of aimer.
In spelling, the present indicative and present subjunctive are identical for je/il/elle/on:
- indicatif présent: il aime
- subjonctif présent: qu’il aime
But in this sentence:
- We are talking about a real, definite person that someone loves (not a hypothetical or doubted one)
- So French uses the indicative: la personne qu’il ou elle aime
If the clause involved doubt, wish, or non-existence, a subjunctive could be needed, but that’s not the case here.
No. That word order is ungrammatical in French.
The natural and correct structure is:
- choisir la personne qu’il ou elle aime
- main verb: choisir
- direct object: la personne
- relative clause describing la personne: qu’il ou elle aime
You cannot move la personne to the end in French the way you sometimes can in English; French word order is more rigid.