If only a totally separate data field separator character had been invented early on and been given its own key on the keyboard, coloured: "only use for field delimiting". You know as well as I do that it would have been co-opted into another rôle within weeks, probably as a currency indicator.

You should probably use PSV - Point Separated Variable! Obviously we would need to adjust PSV to account for correct French word order (and actually use French correctly). Britain and USA would use something called PVS2 instead as a data interchange format with France which involves variable @@@ symbols as delimiters, unless it is a Friday which is undefined. The rest of the world would roll its eyes and use PSV with varying success. A few years later France would announce VSP on the back page of Le Monde, enshrine its use in law (in Aquitaine, during the fifteenth century) but not actually release the standard for fifteen years.

The world is odd. We have to work within an odd world.

Interestingly enough, you and I could look at a CSV encoded data set with commas as decimal separators and work out what is going on. You'll need a better parser!