How to address an academic in a French letter How do we address persons with academic titles in formal letters? "Monsieur X," or "Madame X," seems like it might be disrespectful, but that might just be my anglophone thinking. For example, let's take two made-up people: a female person called Dr Deslauriers, who holds a PhD in Literature, and a male person called Prof Sorel, who is a professor of astrophysics at an elite university. How do we address them in letters? Does this sound right? Docteur Deslauriers, (even though the person is female) Professeur Sorel,How about "Madame le Docteur Deslauriers," or doesn't that make sense?