Read French · Lesson 16 · News and attributed information
Find the actor in news prose
Separate the grammatical subject from the person or institution performing an action.
Prerequisite: the earlier lessons in this course, especially pronoun references and verb groups. Use the previous link if these are unfamiliar.
You can answer in English. Keep the translation closed for your first attempt. Dictionary use is compatible with independent reading; a successful exercise is not a fluency certificate.
Read before the explanation
Read for the main meaning first. Then consider this question: Who donated the books? Does the passage name who installed the tables or who will organize the evenings?
First reading · Original course text · about 71 words
Une salle remise en service
Une ancienne salle a été rénovée par la mairie. Elle sera ouverte au public lundi. Des livres ont été donnés par les habitants et les tables ont été installées hier. La responsable précise que la salle est encore fermée ce week-end. On prévoit deux soirées de lecture par mois. Aucun nom n’est indiqué pour l’organisation de ces soirées. Il est demandé aux visiteurs de réserver une place, mais l’entrée sera gratuite.
Vocabulary for this passage
rénover
to renovate
remis en service
brought back into use
un habitant
a resident
prévoir
to plan or foresee
gratuit
free of charge
réserver
to reserve
English reading, after your attempt
An old room has been renovated by the council. It will open to the public on Monday. Books have been donated by residents and the tables were installed yesterday. The manager specifies that the room is still closed this weekend. Two reading evenings per month are planned. No name is given for organizing these evenings. Visitors are asked to reserve a place, but admission will be free.
One contextual rendering, not a word-for-word substitution rule. Try another reading with this reveal closed.
Read a passive construction
In la mairie ouvre la salle, the council performs the opening and is the subject. In la salle est ouverte par la mairie, the room is the subject but receives the action. Passive voice combines être with a participle; par often introduces the actor. La salle a été ouverte means the room was opened, not that the room opened something.
Follow the action when the subject receives it
The grammatical subject is the noun group or pronoun linked to the verb through the sentence's structure. It need not be the agent, the person or institution performing an action. In the fictional report Le laboratoire analyse les échantillons, le laboratoire means the laboratory, analyser means analyse, and les échantillons means the samples. The laboratory is both subject and agent. In Les échantillons sont analysés par le laboratoire, the samples are the subject and receive the analysis. The laboratory remains the agent even though it no longer occupies the subject position.
Passive voice names this changed relationship. It commonly combines a form of être, be, with the event verb's participle. Sont analysés means are analysed in this example. The plural ending of analysés matches les échantillons, not the singular laboratory. Agreement is a grammatical link, not a claim about biological gender. Compare Les mesures sont vérifiées, where les mesures means the measurements and vérifier means check. The feminine plural ending follows the grammatical gender and number of mesures. It does not tell us whether the people checking are women or men.
Keep voice and time separate
French wording
Reading consequence
Les échantillons sont analysés.
Present passive; analysis receives focus.
Les échantillons ont été analysés.
Past passive analysis, performer omitted.
Les échantillons seront analysés demain.
Future passive analysis, not completed.
Les échantillons avaient été analysés.
Passive analysis earlier than a past reference.
All four sentences put the samples in subject position. The auxiliary group changes their temporal relationship to the analysis without naming the person or institution performing it.
Past passive wording can contain several helping forms. Les échantillons ont été analysés contains ont, a present form of avoir, été, the participle of être, and analysés, the participle naming the analysis. Read ont été analysés as one past passive group. There are not three independently ordered actions called having, being, and analysing. Compare active Le laboratoire a analysé les échantillons, which presents the laboratory as subject. The samples' analysis is the relevant event in both, although the passive version here does not name the laboratory at all.
Tense still matters within passive voice. Les échantillons seront analysés demain uses future seront and demain, tomorrow. The analysis is presented as future, not complete. Les échantillons avaient été analysés avant le départ uses avant le départ, before departure, and the earlier-past passive avaient été analysés. Completion precedes that past reference point. Voice identifies the subject's relationship to the action; tense helps locate the action in time. Do not let the extra participles make all passive sentences look like completed past reports when some describe plans or ongoing processes.
An agent phrase introduced by par belongs to its own action. Les échantillons sont transportés par un chauffeur uses transporter, transport, and un chauffeur, a driver. It identifies the transporter. Les échantillons sont analysés par une technicienne uses une technicienne, a technician, to identify the analyst. Neither sentence makes one person responsible for both stages. If the same samples occur in successive clauses, track the changing verb and its local agent instead of attaching the first named performer to every later action concerning those samples.
The subject changes, the analyst does not
Active version
Le laboratoire analyse les échantillons.
Le laboratoire
Subject and analysing institution
analyse
Present analysis verb
les échantillons.
Direct object receiving analysis
Passive version
Les échantillons sont analysés par le laboratoire.
Les échantillons
Subject receiving analysis
sont analysés
Present passive verb group
par le laboratoire.
Institution performing this analysis
Both panels identify the laboratory as analyst. Passive voice moves the samples into subject position and marks that relationship through the verb group, not by changing who analyses.
Not every par phrase names an agent. Les échantillons arrivent par le train de nuit uses arriver, arrive, and le train de nuit, the night train. The phrase identifies transport route or means; there is no passive analysis construction. Par erreur means by mistake and describes circumstances, not a person performing an action. Some passive-like relationships use de, as in Ce chercheur est connu de ses collègues, this researcher is known to his colleagues. These patterns require their own vocabulary and construction, not a universal rule that par always identifies an agent.
Do not invent an omitted actor
Une décision a été prise tells you a decision was made but may omit who made it. Le pont a été fermé similarly leaves the closing authority unstated. Recover an actor from context only when the text supports it. Est fermé can describe a closed state as well as belong to a passive interpretation; surrounding words matter.
Distinguish an omitted actor from an inferred one
Omission leaves a gap in what the sentence tells you. In the fictional notice Les dossiers ont été détruits, les dossiers means the files and détruire means destroy. The sentence reports destruction without naming the performer. That may be because the performer is unknown, already familiar, irrelevant to the writer, or deliberately omitted. Grammar alone does not select a motive for the omission. A careful account can say the files were destroyed and the sentence does not identify who destroyed them, without alleging concealment or choosing a likely culprit.
A named institution in the same paragraph is not automatically the missing actor. La directrice a reçu un rapport. Des dossiers ont été détruits uses la directrice, the director, recevoir, receive, and un rapport, a report. The first sentence identifies the report's recipient. The second leaves the files' destroyer unspecified. Their proximity may invite questions, but does not establish responsibility. Recover an omitted actor only from a supporting relationship in the text, such as an explicit explanation or an unambiguous continuation, not from the prominence of a name alone.
Do not transfer responsibility between roles
French wording
Reading consequence
La directrice a reçu un rapport.
Director receives information; destruction not asserted here.
La direction a annoncé la destruction.
Management announces; destroyer not identified.
Les dossiers ont été détruits par la secrétaire.
Secretary is explicitly identified as destroyer.
Le nom du responsable n'est pas indiqué.
Identity is unreported; responsibility is not denied.
Receiving a report, announcing destruction, and destroying files are different relationships. Only an explicit local link licenses identifying a named person as performer of the destruction.
Different verbs identify different responsibilities. La direction a annoncé que les dossiers avaient été détruits uses la direction, management, and annoncer, announce. Management is the announcer. The destruction is earlier than that announcement, but its performer remains unexpressed inside the passive clause. Even an official announcement need not identify who authorized, performed, or witnessed the destruction. These roles can belong to different people. When summarizing a fictional news report like this one, separate the source of information from the agent of the event being reported before assigning responsibility.
Negation can explicitly deny that an actor is identified. Le nom du responsable n'est pas indiqué uses le nom, the name, le responsable, the person responsible, and indiquer, indicate or specify. The name is not given in the text. That does not mean nobody was responsible. Compare Aucun dossier n'a été détruit, where aucun dossier means no file and the sentence denies destruction itself. The first concerns missing information; the second concerns an event not occurring. A negative verb group must be interpreted with its subject and content.
The scope of par can also require a longer noun group. Le rapport a été envoyé par la secrétaire du directeur uses envoyer, send, la secrétaire, the secretary, and du directeur, of the director. The agent is the director's secretary, not the director. The phrase after du describes the secretary's relationship to another person. Do not attach the sending action to the last named person simply because that name is closer to the sentence end. Read the whole agent phrase before reducing it to an English label for your account.
Announcing is not destroying
Source named, performer omitted
La direction a annoncé que les dossiers avaient été détruits.
La direction
Subject performing the announcement
a annoncé
Past announcement verb
que les dossiers avaient été détruits.
Earlier destruction with no performer named
Performer explicitly named
Les dossiers avaient été détruits par la secrétaire.
Les dossiers
Subject receiving destruction
avaient été détruits
Earlier passive destruction
par la secrétaire.
Named performer of destruction
The first panel identifies a source for information about destruction. The second identifies its performer. Both can belong to one report without making management and the secretary interchangeable.
An attributed assertion is still an assertion by a source, not independently verified truth. In the fictional report Selon la direction, les dossiers ont été détruits par erreur, selon means according to and par erreur means by mistake. Management supplies the explanation that destruction was accidental. The grammar does not prove that explanation, name the destroyer, or show that no rules were broken. An adequate account preserves both the reported event and the attributed characterization. Understanding a passive construction does not supply external evidence about the accuracy or honesty of its source.
Read on and impersonal il
On annonce une fermeture can report an announcement without naming the source. Il est prévu de fermer describes a plan without naming its planner. Neither on nor impersonal il guarantees an institution’s identity. Compare a plan, a completed act, and an existing state before writing a summary.
Read states and unspecified human subjects
A form of être followed by a participle may describe a state rather than narrate a fresh action. In the fictional notice Le bassin est fermé, le bassin means the swimming pool and fermé means closed. The sentence can describe its current state. Le bassin est fermé chaque soir par le gardien adds chaque soir, every evening, and le gardien, the caretaker, favouring a repeated closing action. Context matters. A state of closure does not itself give a closing time, name the closer, or explain whether repairs or safety caused the closure.
Compare a completed closing event with a continuing state. Le bassin a été fermé à dix-neuf heures dates an act of closure at seven in the evening. Le bassin est fermé depuis lundi uses depuis lundi, since Monday, to describe a state continuing now. It supplies a starting reference for that state, but does not identify the performer. A short headline containing only Bassin fermé omits even more grammatical information. Without surrounding reporting, do not confidently reconstruct its precise tense or whether it reports a new decision rather than an existing condition.
State, event, and plan are different assertions
French wording
Reading consequence
Le bassin est fermé depuis lundi.
Closed state continuing since Monday.
Le bassin a été fermé à dix-neuf heures.
Closing event dated at seven in the evening.
On nettoie le bassin.
Active cleaning statement; people unnamed.
Il est prévu de nettoyer le bassin.
Cleaning planned, not asserted complete.
The examples all concern a pool but do not assert the same event or status. Identify the construction before assigning a performer, date, or completed outcome to it.
The pronoun on often leaves people unnamed while using an active verb. On nettoie le bassin uses nettoyer, clean, and reports cleaning with an unspecified human subject in context. On can mean people generally, an unspecified group, or we in informal usage. It does not always mean everyone, the authorities, or the publication's staff. On m'a expliqué la règle means someone explained the rule to me; la règle means the rule. The wording identifies a communication to the speaker but does not by itself identify the source as an expert.
Do not confuse subject on with auxiliary ont. On a vérifié les résultats uses vérifier, check, and les résultats, the results, with an unspecified subject and singular auxiliary a. Les experts ont vérifié les résultats names les experts, the experts, and uses plural ont. Both are active past constructions, although only the second names its subject precisely. Missing an actor's identity is therefore not exclusive to passive voice. Look at the entire clause rather than assuming every sentence with an unnamed performer must contain a passive verb group.
Impersonal il fills a grammatical subject position without referring to a male person or an earlier object. Il est nécessaire de nettoyer le bassin means cleaning the pool is necessary; nécessaire means necessary. It states a requirement, not that cleaning occurred. Il est prévu de nettoyer le bassin states that cleaning is planned; prévu here means planned. Neither construction identifies the planner or cleaner. Compare Paul est prêt à nettoyer le bassin, where prêt means ready and Paul is a genuine referring subject. Similar-looking sentence openings can carry different kinds of information.
The named people may be recipients
Impersonal request
Il est demandé aux nageurs de porter un bonnet.
Il est demandé
Impersonal passive request, requester unspecified
aux nageurs
Recipients of the request
de porter un bonnet.
Action requested of those swimmers
Explicit requester
Le règlement demande aux nageurs de porter un bonnet.
Le règlement
Grammatical subject expressing the requirement
demande aux nageurs
Requirement directed to the swimmers
de porter un bonnet.
Same requested action
Swimmers are recipients in both panels. The second names the regulations as the source of the requirement; neither sentence proves that any swimmer has complied with it.
Some impersonal requests name a recipient without naming the requester. Il est demandé aux nageurs de porter un bonnet uses demander, ask or request, aux nageurs, to swimmers, porter, wear, and un bonnet, a swimming cap here. The swimmers are asked to wear caps; naming them does not make them the source of the request. Separate requester, recipient, and requested action. The construction reports a request, not proof that everyone complies. Later attribution work will reuse this distinction between what someone asks, says, or plans and what actually happens.
Inspect a sentence
A different case clears the selection, feedback, and worked reveal. Reset keeps the current case.
La mairie a rénové la salle.
Select the actor in the passive version.
Choose one segment, then check. Selection is not automatically marked. All cases are hand-annotated examples, not automatic grammar analysis.
La salle a été rénovée par la mairie cette année.
Worked sentence structure
French evidenceWhat it supports
La salle
Subject receiving action
a été rénovée
Passive past verb
par la mairie
Named actor
cette année.
Time
The council performs the renovation even though the room is the grammatical subject.
Inspect a local role before writing a news account
The sentence cases ask about the role of a particular segment. Before selecting, distinguish the thing affected, the event group, and any phrase naming its performer. A question asking for an actor is not asking for the first noun group or the subject automatically. Check selection compares your chosen segment with the authored key, while Worked sentence structure exposes the supplied roles. This is a controlled recognition task. It does not infer actors from real news articles or verify whether a report's account of an event is accurate.
Try the same reasoning on a fresh fictional sentence. Les photographies ont été classées par une archiviste uses les photographies, the photographs, classer, sort or catalogue, and une archiviste, an archivist. The photographs are the grammatical subject and the things being sorted. Ont été classées reports the past sorting. The phrase par une archiviste names the performer of that sorting. The feminine plural participle follows photographies, not the singular archivist. The active version Une archiviste a classé les photographies makes the archivist the subject. The different grammatical subject does not alter who did the sorting.
Keep an event-specific account
French wording
Reading consequence
Les photographies ont été classées par une archiviste.
Sorting completed; archivist explicitly performs it.
Les photographies ont été classées hier.
Sorting dated yesterday; performer omitted.
Les photographies seront exposées en juin.
Exhibition future; performer omitted.
Il faut sélectionner les images.
Selection required; completion not asserted.
The repeated photographs do not make every action completed or every actor known. Keep the time and performer status local to each verb group when composing an account.
Now remove the agent phrase: Les photographies ont été classées hier. Hier means yesterday. The sentence still identifies the action and its time while leaving its performer unexpressed. If the previous sentence names a photographer, that alone does not show that the photographer sorted the photographs. The role of making images and the role of cataloguing them can differ. A useful English account retains yesterday and the sorting, then marks the missing performer as unstated. It should not replace that uncertainty with the most recently mentioned person's name.
Keep each future or requirement attached to its own event. Les photographies seront exposées en juin uses exposer, exhibit, and en juin, in June. It presents a future exhibition. Il faut sélectionner les images uses il faut, it is necessary, sélectionner, select, and les images, the images. It states a need to select, not selection already achieved. A report may move between completed cataloguing, a future exhibition, and required selection. Summarizing all three as completed activities loses the distinctions even if you identify the photographs as the passive subject.
A cautious account can also preserve genuine uncertainty about state versus action. Les photographies sont exposées dans le hall uses dans le hall, in the lobby. Depending on context, it can describe photographs currently on display or a practice of exhibiting them there. It does not identify who hung them or exactly when. If a following sentence supplies chaque été, every summer, a recurring practice becomes more plausible. If it supplies depuis mardi, since Tuesday, continuing display becomes clearer. Read those additions as evidence rather than pretending the isolated participle settles every question.
Use added time phrases to interpret the display
Continuing display
Les photographies sont exposées depuis mardi.
Les photographies
Subject of the display description
sont exposées
Display state in this context
depuis mardi.
State continuing since Tuesday
Recurring display
Les photographies sont exposées chaque été.
Les photographies
Same grammatical subject
sont exposées
Recurring exhibition in this context
chaque été.
Repetition every summer
The time phrases favour different readings of the same verb group. Neither panel names who arranged the exhibition, so a fuller interpretation must not invent that performer.
For a final reading account, give each asserted event its own performer status and time status. In the photography examples, cataloguing may be completed with an explicit or omitted agent, exhibition is future in one sentence, and selection is required in another. A source's claim remains a claim even when you understand its syntax. You can record these distinctions in English without producing French passive sentences yourself. The optional reading record is local, ungraded page state; copy or download it before reload if you want to retain the account and its unresolved questions.
Read a new passage
Can you conclude that the prefecture carried out the checks or that the bridge has reopened?
Transfer reading · Original course text · about 43 words
Le pont
Le pont a été fermé mardi. La décision a été annoncée par la préfecture. Selon le communiqué, des contrôles seront effectués avant la réouverture. Le nom de l’entreprise chargée des contrôles n’est pas précisé. On ne connaît pas encore la date de réouverture.
Vocabulary for this passage
un pont
a bridge
la préfecture
the prefectural administration
un communiqué
an official statement
une réouverture
a reopening
chargé de
responsible for
English reading, after your attempt
The bridge was closed on Tuesday. The decision was announced by the prefecture. According to the statement, checks will be carried out before reopening. The name of the company responsible for the checks is not specified. The reopening date is not yet known.
One contextual rendering, not a word-for-word substitution rule. Try another reading with this reveal closed.
Explain your reading
Use the passages above as evidence. Write or say your answer before opening a hint or worked answer. The page does not judge free-form responses.
Avoid assigning every action to the council
Who donated the books? Does the passage name who installed the tables or who will organize the evenings?
Hint
Attach each par phrase only to its own clause.
Worked answer
French evidenceWhat it supports
par les habitants
Named donors of books.
Aucun nom n’est indiqué
Evening organizers remain unnamed.
Compare the quoted wording with the interpretation alongside it. Keep the surrounding passage in view.
Residents donated the books. The council renovated the room, but that does not establish that it installed the tables. The table installers and evening organizers are not named.
Announcement versus decision
Can you conclude that the prefecture carried out the checks or that the bridge has reopened?
Hint
Read annoncée, seront effectués, and ne…pas encore.
Worked answer
French evidenceWhat it supports
annoncée par la préfecture
Identifies the announcer.
des contrôles seront effectués
Checks are presented as future, not completed.
Compare the quoted wording with the interpretation alongside it. Keep the surrounding passage in view.
No. The prefecture announced the decision. Checks are future relative to the statement and their company is unnamed. The reopening date is not yet known. Announcing a decision does not by itself identify everyone who made or implemented it.
Review expressions in context
Changing sets restarts at the first item with its meaning hidden. Returning to an item also hides its meaning. Nothing is scheduled or stored after reload.
Item 1 of 6. Recall its meaning in this passage before revealing it.
rénover
Meaning hidden
All review meanings
French evidenceWhat it supports
rénover
to renovate
remis en service
brought back into use
un habitant
a resident
prévoir
to plan or foresee
gratuit
free of charge
réserver
to reserve
These are meanings in the lesson’s contexts. The same expression can have other meanings elsewhere.
My reading record
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French reading record
Lesson: Find the actor in news prose
Support I report using: Not recorded
This is a self-report, not an automatically graded language assessment.
Sources and next reading
The French passages, tasks, and explanations are original course material except the explicitly attributed short excerpt in lesson 26. News-style passages describe invented events. Fiction is not quoted from or attributed to Modiano. Translations give contextual readings, not universal word equivalents.
These selected university grammar references support the mechanisms. Their exercises and characters are not reused. Automated tests check authored data and interface behavior, not linguistic correctness, learning effectiveness, or a CEFR level. No independent French-teacher review has been completed.
For easier continuous reading, reread an earlier passage with its support closed, then try a graded reader on a familiar subject. Revisit several useful expressions in a later session.