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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the Day: Dom-Tom

No, it's not a Satnav system but you might find this useful to avoid getting lost.

Published: 12 August 2021 10:43 CEST
French word of the Day: Dom-Tom
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Why do I need to know Dom-Tom?

Because you might end up in a bit of a geographical muddle if you don’t know what it means.

What does it mean?

Dom-Tom is an acronym, also written DOM-TOM and more recently substituted with DROM-COM.

It stands for Départements d’outre-mer et Territoires d’outre-mer. These days the correct formation is DROM-COM (Départements et regions d’outre mer et collectivities d’outre mer) but as often happens with official language changes the old formation lingers and is probably more widely used outside of government communications.

Either way, they all refer to the same thing – France’s overseas territories.

A legacy of empire, France has territoires d’outre-mer, which are largely self-governing, and départements d’outre-mer which are as much a part of France as Lyon, Lille or Lorient.

READ ALSO ‘Confetti of an empire’ – a look at France’s overseas territories

For this reason, data and information from the départements d’outre-mer are included in French statistics and reports. It’s important to realise the difference, however, unless you want to find yourself 9,000km away in the Indian Ocean (La Réunion) or 6,000km away in the Caribbean (Martinique).

Announcements about policies for France sometimes contain the caveat hors Dom-Tom – which means that different policies apply for the overseas areas.

For the sake of convenience, maps often show the DOMs on the left of the map, such as this one showing vaccination rates.

However, this does not mean that they are located off the coast of La Rochelle (some cruel commentators have suggested that the British government fell into this trap when it classified mainland France as ‘amber plus’ for travel because of the presence of the beta variant of Covid on the island of La Réunion, which is near Madagascar).

Use it like this

Les cas de Covid sont en baisse dans l’hexagone, mais en hausse dans les Dom-Tom – Covid cases are falling in the hexagon [mainland France] but rising in the overseas territories

Emmanuel Macron a annoncé un scénario d’urgence dans les Dom-Tom – Emmanuel Macron has announced a state of emergency in France’s overseas territories

Les régions les plus ensoleillées de France sont la Provence et la Côte d’Azur, et les Dom-Tom – The sunniest areas of France are Provence and the Côte d’Azur, and the overseas territories  

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For members

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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