J'accuse

In 2009, when we arrived to live in France, it seemed that the country was in denial about the impending recession. Even in 2012 President Hollande brought in measures to allow long serving workers to retire at 60 – just at the same time as other European governments were making us work longer for our pensions. In this context, Damien Saez wrote the song “J’accuse” in 2010 – reflecting more the mood of the people than the optimism of the politicians. I only found out about this controversial artist from a colleague at work. Here is an extract of his lyrics, which end with the surprising suggestion that medical help could be sought in England.


Il parait qu’il faut virer les profs, It seems we should sack the teachers,


Et puis les travailleurs sociaux, And then the social workers,


Les fonctionnaires qui servent à rien, the civil servants who are good for nothing


Les infirmières à 1000 euros, nurses on a salary of 1000 euros


Faut qu’ça rapporte aux actionnaires, the shareholders have to be paid


La santé et les hopitaux, health and hospitals


Va t'faire soigner en Angleterre, go and get looked after in England.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqaiH8iBZ5g&feature=kp


Popular culture may have highlighted the malaise in France but now we have had time to look back over the past five years. We came to the conclusion that life in this rural backwater has certainly been changing but in general, the quality of life in Mouzon has been in decline. This subject is examined in more detail in my blog “Our fifth anniversary”.

So ist es ;-)

Thank you Brian - an excellent choice - grasping German irony is probably easier for me than French as my OH is German. Nevertheless the humour at Fastnacht goes right over my head and OH, between the giggles, has to interpret for me.

Here is a bit of German irony in the same vein as Saez, if a darned sight more serious:

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr,
der protestieren konnte.

Translated:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Martin Niemöller. There are several variants of his original but the irony is not lost too much in translation. It is simply in that vein that Damien Saez was looking at a country as it was and what it has become, thus begging the question how people, including himself, could have done something but then asking after the event...

Yes Andrew and Véro, exactly.

Irony is always a difficult one, Kenneth, many people don't even get it in their mother tongue so it's never going to be easy in a foreign language! :-O

However the decline is there and Marine's rise in just about every election shows just how much people on en a marre !

My original idea was to show how popular culture highlighted the recession in France whilst the government hid its head in the sand. We have now resided in France for five years and the gradual decline is charted in the blog "Our fifth anniversary". In the blog itself, there is no mention of the health service.

I appreciate your analysis Veronique - I find that my French is really not up to it when it comes to popular culture.

Er, I'm sorry to have to tell you this is IRONY - Saez is saying that all these things are very bad ideas. Just in case nobody realised, the last line 'go & get your medical treatment in England' is the equivalent of 'f*ck off and die'. The actual last line of the verse is 'va voir la gueule de leur métro' as we think the London underground is even older dirtier & more dilapidated than the Métro.