France: The decline of the abstract noun

[Harold Schiffman]

French political language

The decline of the abstract noun
Dec 13th 2007 | PARIS


What a reduction in abstraction says about the new France


OF ALL the novelties of France under President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of
the more arresting is the decline of the abstract noun. In the past,
no French leader would make a speech without liberal doses of destiny
and history. In one speech Mr Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac,
squeezed 13 abstract nouns—unity, liberty, humanity and more—into a
single sentence. He was almost outdone by his prime minister (and
part-time poet), Dominique de Villepin, who came up with the
declaration: "Globalisation is not an ideal, it cannot be our
destiny."

The contrast with the wordcraft of Mr Sarkozy is instructive. In his
first big foreign-policy speech, he managed in 18 pages to utter
neither the word glory nor the word grandeur. Unlike his British
counterparts, who favour verbless sentences, Mr Sarkozy is a
verbaholic. According to a linguistic analysis of his campaign
speeches by Damon Mayaffre, of the University of Nice, one of Mr
Sarkozy's most frequent words is I, usually followed by the verb want.

What does this say about France? One answer is that the country has a
hyperactive president, constantly on the go, who expects the French to
be so too. "Work more to earn more" was his slogan, and his use of
verbs matches the message. This is a man who likes to jog, where
previous presidents preferred a dignified stroll. Indeed, his
predilection prompted Libération, a left-leaning newspaper, to ask,
"Is jogging right-wing?" It even moved a philosopher, Alain
Finkielkraut, to implore the president to take up the promenade—a
"spiritual experience"—and to give up jogging, which is mere "body
management".

Another explanation is that Mr Sarkozy is challenging the French
tradition of conceptualism. Intellectuals, long cherished by the
establishment, get short shrift now. "It's an old national habit:
France is a country that thinks," said Christine Lagarde, the finance
minister, in a speech on the value of work, before adding: "Enough
thinking now! Let's roll up our sleeves." This week, Mr Sarkozy
sneered at French philosophers during the visit of Libya's Muammar
Qaddafi to Paris, accusing them of sipping coffee in Left Bank cafés
while others got things done. As for France's famously rigid school
curriculum, he has little fondness for it. Too much time is spent, he
has declared, "on doctrine, theory and abstraction", and not enough on
practical applications. How long will it be before he has a go at the
national motto, a veritable wealth of abstraction: Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity?

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10286340

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