20th Century
With important dictionaries published at the turn of 20th century, such as Émile Littré's, Pierre Larousse's and Arsène Darmesteter's, and later Paul Robert's, the Académie gradually lost much of its prestige.
Hence, new reforms suggested in 1901, 1935, and 1975 were almost totally ignored, except for the replacement of apostrophes with hyphens in some cases of (potential) elision in 1935.
- grand'mère → grand-mère (grandmother)
Since the 1970s, though, calls for the modernisation of French orthography have grown stronger. In 1989, French prime minister Michel Rocard appointed the Superior Council of the French language to simplify the orthography by regularising it.
Read more about this topic: Reforms Of French Orthography
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