(Photo: Getty Images, Michael Loccisano)

Way back in 2015, it fell upon us to carry out the sad duty of informing Harry Potter fans what the canonical word for “muggles”—or non-magical people—is in America. That word, as we all surely know now, is “no-maj,” and it was created for the then-upcoming spin-off movie Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. With Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald on the way, the arbiters of Harry Potter lore have now presented the rest of humanity with the word that people in France use for muggles. Unsurprisingly, it also kind of sucks.


This comes from Entertainment Weekly, which says the word for French muggles is simply “non-magique”—so it’s basically “no-maj” but with a French accent. Crimes Of Grindelwald director David Yates made that disappointing reveal, explaining that the movie will take place in Paris instead of the previous film’s New York setting. He also says that French wizards are a bit more inclusive than American wizards, who separated the communities of magic people and no-maj people (possibly because the no-maj people were incredibly offended to be given such a dumb name).

EW also teases that the rest of the movies in the Fantastic Beasts series will take place in different cities, meaning we can look forward to even more slight variations on no-maj in the coming years.

