Can Edwards storm the Academie Francaise?

A courageous English poet, Michael Edwards, will today attempt something no Englishman has achieved before - to join the Academie Francaise, the revered body of French 'immortals' whose job is to defend the purity and integrity of the French language. It would be a formidable feat. For while Edwards is bilingual, married to a Frenchwoman and has dual nationality, he has been to known to make grammatical errors when speaking his second language.

Edwards, 69, a published poet in both English and French, currently holds the European chair at the College of France, the prestigious institution just across the road from the Sorbonne in Paris's Latin Quarter. He has been nominated for one of two vacant seats at the Academie Francaise, founded in 1653 by Cardinal Richelieu and counting among its members down the centuries such men as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo (pictured). But there has never before been a British-born member.

"I am extremely honoured, even moved, just to be nominated," Professor Edwards told the Independent yesterday. "I have spent my life moving between the two countries. I have come to write my books and my poetry mostly in French. If I was to be chosen, I would think of myself as having been, finally, accepted by France."

It will be no shoo-in. Academie members are notoriously fussy about the credentials and of those whom they invite to wear their cocked hats and green, gold-braided uniforms. A Parisian academic who knows Edwards, speaking anonymously, said the Englishman was a great expert in French literature, and his lectures at the College of France were well regarded. However, "he is not immune to making grammatical mistakes, which are, admittedly, very easy to make in French".