def stem(text):
    """make string lower-case"""
    text = text.lower()
    """Stem each word of the French text."""

    stemmed_text = ''

    word_tokenizer = WordTokenizer('french')
    tokenized_text = word_tokenizer.tokenize(text)
    for word in tokenized_text:
        """remove the simple endings from the target word"""
        word, was_stemmed = matchremove_noun_endings(word)
        """if word didn't match the simple endings, try verb endings"""
        if not was_stemmed:
            word = matchremove_verb_endings(word)
        """add the stemmed word to the text"""
        stemmed_text += word + ' '
    return stemmed_text
make string lower-case