Whilst reading Jacques Chirac’s stepping down speech transcript in “Le Monde”, I came accross a few idiomatic expressions:

Aller de l’avant:

To go forward, to advance

Avoir à coeur:

To be committed to

Etre aux avant-postes:

To be on the forefront

In the article entitled “Au salon de Genève, les Européens se cherchent un avenir meilleur” from the above newspaper, the expression “faire du surplace” is used.

PSA Peugeot-Citroën, qui donne l’impression depuis deux ans de faire du surplace, mise sur le marché des 4 x 4 avec la Peugeot 4 2007 et la Citroën C-Crosser.

According to Linternaute, this means:

Ne pas avancer, rester immobile.

If we translate:

To cease to advance, to remain stationary

Here are some english equivalents:

• To be getting/going nowhere
• To come to a halt
• To grind to a halt

Hence the whole phrase could be translated as:

PSA Peugeot-Citroën, which seems to have been going nowhere for the last two years, is taking a gamble on the 4 x 4 market with the Peugeot 4 2007 and the Citroën C-Crosser.

The following quote was taken from the article entitled “M. Raffarin jugerait “regrettable” que le candidat du Front national ne puisse se présenter”

[ndlr Il] a jugé ce système “probablement caduc”.

Whilst the word “caduc” means:

deciduous (botany)

In this particular case, it actually means:

No longer valid, obsolete

Hence the translation:

He judged that this system probably obsolete now.

I actually prefer to make a more figurative translation:

He deemed that this system had seen its day.

In the article entitled “M. Chirac devrait annoncer qu’il ne se représentera pas la semaine du 12 mars” I found the following passage:

Le président devrait annoncer dans la semaine du 12 mars, en s’adressant solennellement aux Français à la télévision, qu’il ne briguera pas un troisème mandat.

The verb “briguer” can be translated as:

to aspire to

Hence the translation of the whole passage could be:

Mr Chirac should announce during the week commencing the 12th of March via a solemn televised address to the French people that he does not aspire to a third [ndlrpresidential] mandate.

In the article from the above newspaper, entitled “Le doute sur la candidature Bové gagne chez les antiliberaux“, it was interesting to note the choice of words used to introduce the main thematic.

Les difficultés rencontrées par José Bové pour récolter ses 500 parrainages commencent à semer le doute dans les rangs antilibéraux.

The words “récolter” and “semer” along with “les rangs” particularly sprang to my attention. José Bové, as well as being a politician, is by profession a farmer and is equally well known for his anti-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) stance. It is no coincidence that this figurative agricultural vocabulary has been carefully incorporated into the article which describes the woes of the French “Paysan”.

In French, récolter means “to harvest/to crop” whilst semer literally means to sow (seed). Les rangs could also be interpreted as rows or lines of seeds or crops planted out in a field.

Hence we can translate the passage above as:

The difficulties encountered by José Bové in gathering his 500 sponsorships [ndlrneeded for his election candidature] are beginning to sow the seeds of doubt in the anti liberal lines.

It is worth bringing to the reader’s attention that in more “high brow” newspapers such as Le Monde, this sort of language can pass unnoticed if particular attention is not paid.