Portrait de la gauche en France
French Listening Comprehension
Study Guide
Take a look at the following for help with any vocabulary and grammar that you might not
have understood in La gauche en France, then take
the test.
| Vocabulary | |
| balbutier | to stammer |
| la cuisine politique | political scheming, wheeling and dealing |
| le déchirement | tearing, ripping, strife, discord |
| la délocalisation | relocation |
| dénicher | to dig out, find |
| la déroute | rout, collapse |
| éparpillement | scattering, dispersal |
| fédérer | to federate, unite |
| guetté | threatened |
| une marge | margin, space, room |
| mortifère | morbid, deadly |
| une pente | inclination, slope |
| le recul | retreat |
| replonger | plunge, dive back |
| rude | tough, rough |
| la rupture | break |
| au sein de | within, in the heart of |
| soutenir | to support |
| trancher | to decide, resolve (also, to slice) |
| la zizanie | ill-feeling, discord |
| Grammar - Click the links for detailed lessons | |
| causative | ce qui l'a fait perdre |
| double negation | Le débat n'est pas que de la cuisine politique |
| indefinite relative pronouns | je ne trouve pas ... ce qui permettrait |
| Notes | |
| Socialists |
It is often said that the French are politically left-wing and socially conservative. This does not mean, of course, that the French always vote for parties of the left, rather that their political center is at least several degrees to the left of what people in the English-speaking world consider the middle. There is very little room for economic liberalism, for example, but large space at the other end of the spectrum for Trotskyists and the anticapitalists. The Gaullists of President Jacques Chirac, invariably described as center-right, in fact have a record of economic interventionism and social spending that left-wingers in Britain or the United States would applaud. When the Socialists were in power, they passed the 35-hour week, whose origins lay in a tradition of utopian social theory that today has little resonance in much of the rest of the world. (The notion that to end unemployment you have merely to divide the existing jobs up among more people is, to say the least, controversial.) The 35-hour week was undoubtedly a factor in the Socialists' rout in the presidential elections of 2002, a defeat that led Lionel Jospin, who had been prime minister since 1997, to resign from politics. Since then the mantle of the left has been contested by the figures mentioned in the text. Laurent Fabius was the very youthful prime minister of President François Mitterrand from 1984 to 1986. Along with the former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he is seen as belonging to a modernizing centrist wing of the party, although his intervention in the debate over the EU constitution (see below) shows he is happy to play the left-wing card when he considers it necessary. François Hollande, the Socialists' nominal leader as first secretary, has played an important role in holding the party together after the collapse of 2002, but is not generally regarded as presidential material. The immaculately coiffed Jack Lang became famous two decades ago as Mitterrand's culture minister and remains the guardian of the late president's memory within the top ranks of the party. But in spite of being omnipresent in the media, he is not seen as a serious contender for 2007. |
| EU Constitution | The European Union's new constitution—or constitutional treaty, to be more exact—is at the center of current debates in France (and elsewhere) over the role of the E.U. relative to its member states, and the extent to which it should promote social equality at the expense of a more market-oriented economic agenda. After central and eastern European countries were admitted to the E.U. in 2004, it became apparent that without reform the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the Parliament, and the Court of Justice would soon become gridlocked. A group of experts under former French president Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing drew up the new 300-page constitutional treaty, and it was officially singed at a ceremony in Rome last October. But it is subject to ratification by all 25 members, and it is unclear whether there is sufficient support for that to happen. In France, the left has decided to join the far right in making the constitution a cause célèbre. |
| 2002 elections | Not only were the Socialists eliminated, but the extreme-Right Front National party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen won the first round - learn more. |
| Nicholas Sarkozy | Nicolas Sarkozy, the rising star of the French right, resigned as finance minister in November 2004 to assume the leadership of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, ahead of a bid for the presidency in 2007. In terms of profile, popularity, and originality of ideas, he appears to have a leg up on the socialists at the moment. |
| Portrait de la gauche en France French Listening Comprehension Exercise |
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| Listen | Study | Test | ||
| Transcript Translation | ||||
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Sound files, transcript, and notes about People and Characters were originally published in Champs-Élysées audiomagazine (read my review) and are used with the permission of Champs-Élysées, Inc. |
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