In our monthly French language column, intrepid Douglas Campbell scours the media and tracks down Le Grenelle, Saving Private Dati and Amy Winehouse.

 Le Grenelle de...

Leaping back into multiple daily use in the media with the general summit meeting of all parties concerned with the environment, "le Grenelle de l’environnement", was this initially baffling use of a place name. Rue de Grenelle is where the Ministry of Education is, and "rue de Grenelle" will often be used to avoid repetition of "Education Ministry", in the same way as "Matignon" and "L’Élysée" are used for "the Prime Minister’s Office" and "Presidential circles". "Ils doivent être reçus demain rue de Grenelle" means "they are to be received at the Ministry of Education tomorrow".

However, the use of "Grenelle", as a masculine noun, to refer to "an important conciliatory problem-solving summit meeting bringing together all interested parties in order to resolve conflict" goes back to "les accords de Grenelle", the agreements which were reached after the strikes, riots and near-revolution of May ’68. The summit meeting between the government, unions and employers took place in the "rue de Grenelle", in the Employment Ministry / Ministry of Labour building, and ended the strikes which were paralysing France. See Le Monde, 7 October 2007 : "Un Grenelle! C'est le symbole historique des ‘accords’ du même nom, qui auraient conclu, le 27 mai 1968 à l'hôtel du Châtelet, le ministère du travail, vingt-cinq heures de négociations non-stop entre le gouvernement, le patronat et les syndicats. A l'issue de ce marathon, destiné à mettre fin aux grandes grèves de Mai 68, une hausse du SMIG et des salaires, des réductions d'horaires et une reconnaissance de la section syndicale d'entreprise furent annoncées. La salle des négociations rue de Grenelle s'appelle encore aujourd'hui la ‘salle des accords’."

One of Sarkozy’s pre-election promises was that if elected he would organise a summit meeting ("une réunion / une conférence au sommet", reduced to "un sommet", hence the masculine of "un Grenelle") about the environment. Who was the first to use the term "le Grenelle de l’environnement"? I don’t know, but it was everywhere in October. According to the presenter of the excellent "kiosque"on the TV5 site, it is "parfaitement intraduisible dans les autres langues, ça a mis les correspondants en poste à Paris dans de grandes difficultés". Well... it’s not that it’s untranslatable, it’s just that the word "Grenelle" has associations for anyone who knows about May ’68, and above all for those who lived through it.

So, "un Grenelle" is a summit meeting intended to restore harmony, to "réconcilier les inconciliables". "Un Grenelle vert" was heard a great deal in October; when asked how they had explained the word to their readers, the foreign correspondents variously said they had called it "les états généraux de l’environnement" or "une réunion au sommet verte". The term "États généraux" itself also has heavy historical associations, because of the "états généraux" of 1789 which preceded the Revolution. To indicate just how lofty, important and harmonious the meeting was, one speaker was "le nouveau Messie anti-apocalypse", Al Gore, as TV5 described him.

Il faut sauver...

As happens with many film titles, I can imagine variations on "Il faut sauver le soldat Ryan" still being in the journalist’s catechism of cliché when the film itself is long forgotten except by "les cinéphiles". The urgency present in the French translation which is not in "Saving Private Ryan" is clearly what appeals; for example, in the Nouvel Observateur (22 November 2007) you can see "Il faut sauver la soldate Dati!" Why? Under attack from left, right and... centre because of the Sarkozy-backed reforms of the legal system which are bringing magistrates and lawyers out onto the streets, she is in need of support from within the UMP. However, "Saving Private Dati" would clearly work here.

 Rehab

In a recent Le Monde review of an Amy Winehouse gig in Paris, with the splendid headline of "Amy Winehouse à Paris, fidèle à son patronyme" (Amy Winehouse lives up to her name), I again saw the unsurprising "troncation" of "désintoxication", which clearly has far too many syllables to be allowed to survive unscathed. So in the journalist’s translation of the chorus of "son très symbolique tube ‘Rehab’" you can read "ils ont voulu m’envoyer en cure de désintox / J’ai dit non, non, non". Or perhaps that should have been "nan, nan", as in "La boulette" by Diam’s, France’s number-one female rapper, with her chorus of "Nan, nan, c'est pas l'école qui nous a dicté nos codes. Nan, nan, génération nan, nan".

We had "la génération Mitterrand"; now we have "la génération nan nan", knowing what they don’t want, rejecting everything?

On which cheerful note...sur ce, je vous quitte. Bonnes fêtes.

Dougal Campbell, French language tutor at Glasgow University
Please contact the author with any comments and similar amuse-gueule snippets of French, at D.Campbell@french.arts.gla.ac.uk