Avoir verbs past participle gender rules

Question

From France 24 headline, "Comment l'Allemagne a-t-elle vécue la vague de chaleur." What is the rule for the feminine ending of vécue?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour à tous,
Maarten and Anne are both correct! The past participle "vécue" is wrong. It should be "vécu".
The past participle conjugated with "avoir" only agrees when its direct object is placed before the verb.
 Here:
- "la vague de chaleur" is the direct object
and
it is placed after the verb (i.e. a vécu)
Therefore, "vécu" is the correct form. There can't be an agreement.
Take a look at the following link:
https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/special-cases-when-the-past-participle-agrees-in-number-and-gender-when-used-with-avoir-in-le-passe-compose-conversational-past
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Christian Huter · Answer

Le titre exact est "Canicule : comment l'Allemagne a-t-elle vécue la vague de chaleur ?"Et voilá, on a le COD (la canicule) avant le PP et on met l'accord.

Francis Watson · Answer

Merci. Je comprends maintenant.

Anne Davies · Answer

Isn’t “la vague de chaleur" the direct object of vivre? (In which case, I don’t understand the past participle agreement either!)

Francis Watson · Answer

"Canicle" at the beginning of the sentence which I didn't quote originally is the feminine direct object.

Maarten Kamp · Answer

Interesting to get other views - coming from France 24 the usual assumption is that it is correct. However, I think this time it is probably just wrong grammatically and haven’t found anything to confirm otherwise.

There is a direct object after the verb as Anne noted - “ la vague de chaleur “. No agreement when there is a direct object following the verb here.

‘ Canicule : ‘ is ( just the lead word of ) the title, and separated from the phrase itself by a colon - that is, effectively a separate structure from, and not the direct object of, the following verb.