Whilst reading the article entitled “En Altitude”, I came across the french compound word “pince-fesse”:
Prémices du salon du Bourget, la société Aviaxess a récemment organisé un pince-fesses à l’héliport de Paris
The word “pince-fesse” means:
Bash, cocktail party
Hence the whole sentence could be translated as:
First fruits of the Bourget air show, the company Aviaxess recently organised a bash at Paris’s heliport.
In the article above I came accross the expression “bayer aux corneilles”.
Et quand une touriste espagnole s’ennuie, elle ne baye pas aux corneilles, elle se met à danser à la sévillane.
The expression “bayer aux corneilles” means:
To daydream
The whole sentence above can be translated as:
And when a Spanish tourist gets bored, she doesn’t daydream – she starts to dance a Sevillana!
The expressions “kézako” or more correctly “quésaco” are both derivatives of the provençal expression “Qu’es aco?” which means:
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
You usually add it to the end of a sentence, for example:
Le pod-casting, kézako?
In English, it means:
What is it?
Whilst reading the article entitled Quai Voltaire, I came across the expression “composer avec”:
Une fois l’ex-président emménagé, ils devront également composer avec “le bruit et l’odeur”.
The expression “composer avec” means:
To make do with, to deal with
Hence we can translate the whole sentence as:
Once the ex-president has moved in, they will also have to make do with the “noise and smell”.
In the article entitled La France qui se lève tôt, I came across the expression “dès potron-minet”
Au nom des Français qui travaillent ou qui cherchent du boulot dès potron-minet, ces militants voulaient tirer du lit “ceux qui s’enrichissent en dormant”.
The expression “dès potron-minet” means the same as “dès l’aube” and can be translated as:
From the crack of dawn
Hence we can translate the whole phrase as:
In the name of those French who work or are job seeking from the crack of dawn, these militants wanted to get all those people who “get rich in their sleep” out of bed.