Why do I need to know ‘emmerder’?
It’s the word of the moment in French political circles, after President Emmanuel Macron caused some upset with it.
He told Le Parisien newspaper: Les non-vaccinés, j’ai très envie de les emmerder. Et donc on va continuer de le faire, jusqu’au bout - The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do it, until the end)
That statement provoked no small amount of political uproar. It led to a second suspension of the debate on the vaccine pass bill in the National Assembly, and offered up easy political point-scoring ammunition to his rivals.
What does it mean?
The French political story got so big, it was picked up by media all over the world.
You can read our report on it here. Elsewhere, Macron’s colourful language caused headline writers a few issues.
The BBC and CNN both opted for ‘hassle’. Other news organisations decided to go with 'get on the nerves', or 'annoy'. These translations, while catching the general drift of Macron’s comment, fail to convey the full force of the word he used - which is really not one for tender ears. Yet more opted for asterisks.
The literal translation of emmerder is ‘to shit [on]’ but, these days, it really means ‘to piss off’.
It’s not the worst word Macron could have chosen, but it demonstrated a high level of presidential frustration that ‘annoy’ or ‘hassle’ - diplomatic synonyms for polite society - just don’t convey. They’re a bit soft to fully colour its true sentiment and meaning.
It's possible Macron was referencing one of his predecessors, Georges Pompidou, who famously growled “Stop pissing off the French! (Arrêtez d’emmerder les Français) in an outburst over the number of new laws being implemented in the country. Ironically, the target of Pompidou's outburst in 1966, when he was Prime Minister, was a young Jacques Chirac, who would also later hold the highest office in the land.
When should you use it?
Maybe don't say it in a newspaper interview at a crucial time in a pandemic in the run-up to a presidential election that you're thinking of running in (although it will probably be mostly forgotten by the time voting comes around).
It’s not the most impolite French word you could use, but it’s one of those informal gathering ones, so it’s perhaps wise to avoid it in job interviews or performance reviews, for example. Or meeting your partner’s parents for the first time. Avoid using it in that sort of best-behaviour situation, at least until someone else has said it first...
Use it like this
Ne les laissez pas vous emmerder - Don’t let them piss you off
Tu m'emmerdes avec tes questions – You're getting on my nerves with all your questions
Toujours, il venait m'emmerder - He always used to come and hassle me
Arrête de nous emmerder - Stop bothering us
Comments (6)