French personal pronouns (analogous to English I, you, he/she, we, and they) reflect the person and number of their referent, and in the case of the third person, its gender as well (much like the English distinction between him and her, except that French draws this distinction among inanimate nouns as well). They also reflect the role they play in their clause: subject, direct object, indirect object, or other.

Personal pronouns display a number of grammatical particularities and complications not found in their English counterparts: some of them can only be used in certain circumstances; some of them change form depending on surrounding words; and their placement is largely unrelated to the placement of the nouns they replace.

1. je, me, te, se, le, and la become j', m', t', s', l', and l' respectively before a vowel or mute h. See Elision (French).
2. The pronoun il and its forms refer to males (like English "he"), while the pronoun elle and its forms refer to females (like English "she"). However, as all French nouns (even inanimate and intangible objects) are either grammatically masculine or feminine, these pronouns can also refer to masculine and feminine nouns. In this case, both il and elle translate to the English pronoun "it". Il can furthermore be used as the direct equivalent of English "it" in order to refer to unspecified neuter things such as facts and ideas (e.g. Il pleut – "It's raining").
3. In formal French, the pronoun on is often replaced by l'on after a vowel (in particular after et, ou, qui, que, quoi and si); in particular, formal French often replaces si on and qu'on with si l'on and que l'on, respectively. This does not affect the meaning, only the pronunciation. In modern French, on has replaced nous as pronoun for the plural first person. Nous is used in formal usage.
4. In French, a group containing at least one male or one masculine noun is considered masculine, and takes the pronoun ils. Only exclusively female or feminine groups take elles.
5. Broadly speaking, lui and leur are used to refer to people, and y (see below) is used to refer to things. Lui and leur, however, will sometimes also be used to refer to things.^{[citation needed]}

French has a T-V distinction in the second person singular. That is, it uses two different sets of pronouns: tu and vous and their various forms.

The usage of Tu and Vous depends on the kind of relationship (formal or informal) that exists between the speaker and the person with whom he is speaking and the age differences between these subjects^[1]. The pronoun tu is informal and singular, spoken to an individual who is equal or junior to the speaker. The pronoun vous is used in the singular (but with second-person plural verb forms) to speak to an individual who is senior to the speaker or socially "more important" than the speaker. Vous is also used in the plural for all groups of people, whether junior, equal or senior.

As noted above, the personal pronouns change form to reflect the role they play in their clause. The forms used for subjects are called the subject pronouns, subjective pronouns, or nominative pronouns. They are as follows:

When the predicate is être ("to be") plus a noun phrase, the pronoun ce (c' in elision contexts) is normally used instead of the other third person subject pronouns. For example, « C'est un homme intelligent » ("He is a smart man"), « Ce sont mes parents » ("Those are my parents"). Ce is primarily used as a "neuter" pronoun to refer to events and situations: « J'ai vu Jean hier. C'était amusant. », "I saw John yesterday. It was fun."

The gender-neutral neologisms iel(le) has emerged in recent years as a common alternative for people of non-binary gender, but is not yet considered standard in French.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). and the order of pronominal clitics as well as the negative clitic ne is strictly determined as follows.^[2][3] Only one clitic can be used for each slot. Where one wishes to express an idea that would involve slots that cannot coexist or multiple pronouns from the same slot, the indirect object is expressed as the object of à or pour (thus Je me donne à toi – "I give myself to you"). The use of more than two clitics beyond the subject and, where necessary, ne is uncommon; constructions such as Je lui y en ai donné may be perceived as unacceptable, and other constructions must then be used to express the same ideas.

Proclitic order

Slots 3 and 5 cannot coexist.

Enclitic order

Used only for positive imperatives. Slots 2 and 3 cannot coexist.

1. The clitics -moi and -toi become -m' and -t' respectively when followed by either -en or -y. In colloquial French, however, it is possible to keep -moi and -toi intact and change -en and -y to -z-en and -z-y respectively, or to put slot 5 before slot 3, or less commonly, before slot 1 or 2.

   ex. The imperative sentences corresponding to « Tu m'en donnes »:

   « Donne-m'en. » /dɔn.mɑ̃/ (formal)

   « Donne-moi-z-en. » /dɔn.mwa.zɑ̃/ (informal)

   « Donnes-en-moi. » /dɔn.zɑ̃.mwa/ (informal)

• French pronouns