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le Larzac fait toujours les frais de bonnes potaches
English translation: Larzac is still the subject of much derision
17:20 Jan 30, 2020
French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Environment & Ecology
French term or phrase:le Larzac fait toujours les frais de bonnes potaches
From an article about global warming:
"Si les scientifiques ont été peu écoutés, l’opinion publique et les élites conservatrices ou économiques se sont également détournées des mouvements « écolos », jugés trop hippies ou trop gauchistes. Raillés donc, souvent réduits à une vision romantique ou au mouvement Trotskiste, ces « verts » font l’objet d’une critique acerbe et dédaigneuse (le Larzac fait toujours les frais de bonnes potaches) et sont considérés hors système, c’est-à-dire incapables de proposer des solutions efficaces, viables, business."
Explanation: In other words, the people referred to in your article still take the piss out of Larzac (a place symbolising civil disobedience because of protests there in the 1970s and a more recent anti-WTO gathering).
Or "the butt of plenty of snide jokes" depending on the tone you're going for.
Well yes, I could add a note explaining Larzac, and that certainly has some appeal, but when I asked the author for clarification they said not to mention Larzac, because they thought it would require too much explanation; they even said they might remove it from the French version.
You've probably made a choice by now, but to add an extra two pennyworth: if this is an objective article talking about the situation specifically in France, why would you want to find something else to stand in for the reference to Larzac? I would keep it and add a very brief note explaining the reference.
"moqué par d’autres" explains the part "le Larzac fait toujours les frais de bonnes [blagues] potaches = those who don't support the "Larzac movement" make about them the kind of jokes you would expect from schoolboys i.e. resort to that "level" of humor.
Maybe s.t. along the lines of "[the Larzac movement] gets dismissed by them with schoolboy jokes (/ crude jokes?)."
ph-b (X)
France
« moqué par d’autres »
13:50 Jan 31, 2020
donc il s'agit bien de dérision et ça n'a rien à voir avec les « plaisanteries/blagues (de) potaches » (càd hoaxes/pranks, and not jokes, in French). L'auteur s'est un peu mélangé les pinceaux...
La lutte du Larzac est devenue le symbole du combat ecolo, en positif pour certains et moqué par d’autres...
ph-b (X)
France
de bonnes potaches ?
08:25 Jan 31, 2020
Odd. As a native speaker, I would have expected sthg like de bonnes blagues de potaches. Even that, however, would have been strange: blague de potaches literally means "schoolboy's/girl's prank" and I don't see how it would fit here. Another ex. of a writer not using the right words? I think that Philippa's "subject of derision" is likely to be the meaning here, but this would have to be checked. Incidentally, the article mentioning them does not to me denote any lack of objectivity: there are still a lot of people who deride, rightly or wrongly, what happened in Larzac and mentioning this in an article is appropriate. By the way, I can't see any pun in the source text, but I would be interested to know the reason why the author chose these terms.
"[l’opinion publique et] les élites conservatrices ou économiques" the whole Larzac movement will be seen as "a bunch of silly/naive kids posing as grown-ups", so for that audience the Larzac protesters would be an ideal target for "bonnes blagues potaches"
So it does add up - this article is presenting objectively the biased views of les élites conservatrices.
Yes, why not replace the pun with a metaphor! It gets the idea across too and that was my point. If the article had gone on to explain a bit about Larzac, I would not have been so reticent about the two suggestions so far.
Isn't there a second and maybe third problem that most readers may well not know what Larzac is referring to and what follows is not going to help them much to work out what the heading means (without counting the likely pun explained by Philippa) in relation to the article.
I'll suggest a possible completely alternative heading (pun) which may well shock some as it is so far from the French, but perhaps gets the idea across nevertheless.
I understood it the same way as Philippa. What is confusing is that this article is supposedly presenting an objective view. A lot of people obviously thought that Larzac was a fine example of successful activism, at the time it had thousands of sympathizers and was described as a "beautiful fight" by Sartre. Yet the article seems to suggest that it is "toujours" the subject of derision. It just doesn't add up. I think I'll have to query it.
I think it may be "blagues potaches". "Bonnes" could be a scanning error, or a description of the jokes. I hope the opinions are not those of the author :-)
Could there be a typo or could something be missing in your source text? "Potache" is masculine and "bonnes" is not in accord with it.
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Answers
17 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +5
Larzac is still the subject of much derision
Explanation: In other words, the people referred to in your article still take the piss out of Larzac (a place symbolising civil disobedience because of protests there in the 1970s and a more recent anti-WTO gathering).
Or "the butt of plenty of snide jokes" depending on the tone you're going for.
Philippa Smith Local time: 09:57 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 32