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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the day: Bras de fer

Want to wrestle? Read this to learn how to strong-arm someone in French.

Published: 25 November 2019 16:30 CET
French word of the day: Bras de fer
Why do I need to know bras de fer?

It pops up all the time in French media whenever there is some sort of conflict.

What does it mean?

The expression bras de fer means strong-arming someone, sometimes literally. In that case, the expression refers to the physical exercise of arm-wrestling, where two people place their elbows on a table, clench their fists and try to force the others' arm onto the table.

Today, bras de fer is mostly used in a symbolic manner to show that someone is preparing for a use of force.

A French online dictionary defines bras de fer as a “brief collision between two people, without any possibility of discussion or negotiation” – which one could say is true for both the symbolic version of the term and a real, physical arm-wrestling match.

Bras de fer is a recurrent expression in French media. For instance, the headline of an article published today on the news website La Depeche describes the ongoing pension reform conflict like this:

Bras de fer sur la réforme des retraites –  [The government is] standing firm on the pension reform.

Another article by the independent investigative news website Mediapart uses the expression to describe how a French supermarket pressured their employees to work after 1pm on Sundays:

Hypermarché ouvert le dimanche après-midi: le bras de fer continue – Hypermarket keeps open Sunday afternoons: the strong-arming continues.

Last but not least:

After a 10-year-long legal battle, a Cantal farmer was sentenced to pay a €8,000 fine to his neighbors as a compensation for his cows' strong scent.

 

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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the Day: Jours ouvrés

You'll need to check the calendar carefully when you see this.

Published: 17 May 2024 12:36 CEST
French word of the Day: Jours ouvrés

Why do I need to know jours ouvrés?

Because you need an accurate time estimate.

What does it mean?

As most French learners will know, jours means days, while in this context ouvrés means ‘working’. Therefore jours ouvrés – roughly pronounced jzoor-ouv-ray – means ‘working days’. You may also see jours ouvrables, which means the same thing.

You’re most likely to come across this in the context of estimates on how long things will take – for example a delivery or the processing of an official task or perhaps the results for a test or exam.

And this is where the calendar comes in – ‘working days’ doesn’t include the weekends, but also excluded are public holidays, of which France has quite a lot. So an estimate for livraison dans les cinq jours ouvrés – might actually take almost two weeks to reach you, if there are weekend days and public holidays in between.

Days on either side of public holidays (known as ‘pont‘ days) are technically working days, but don’t be too surprised if things don’t happen on these days either. 

Although ouvrés looks similar to ouvrir (to open) the root of the work is actually ouvrer – an archaic verb meaning to work or to labour.

This word was gradually supplanted by travailler in around the 16th century, but some derivatives of it are still used – most commonly ouvrier (or ouvrière for women) which means a worker – it can be used for all types of salaried workers, but is more commonly used for people who do manual labour or work with their hands. 

It’s often used in a political sense too – one of France’s leftist political parties is Lutte ouvrière, which translates as Worker’s struggle. 

Use it like this

La livraison est estimée à trois jours ouvrés – Delivery is estimated within three working days

Les résultats seront communiqués sous 48 hours (jours ouvrés) – the results will be sent within 48 hours (on working days)

Not to be confused with 

If you want to talk about ‘open days’ – days when institutions including schools, the military or artists workshops open up to the public – in France these are known as portes ouvertes (literally ‘open doors’).

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