K ärcher (to clean; French political verb for ghetto cleaning)

[Nathalie M=?ISO-8859-1?B?6A==?=ge]

The NYT article is wrong. "Nettoyer au Kärcher" doesn't imply ethnic
cleansing in French per se. It is just  a standard, familiar idiom for
"clean thoroughly".

Sarkozy said he wanted to clean up thoroughly "la racaille" (slang for "the
thugs") from the hood. People did hear racist subtones in this ­ but as a
former Ministre de l'Intérieur and a current presidential candidate in a
country where overt racism can lead you to jail, Sarkozy is careful not to
use any phrase  that would have him sued by the State or anti-racist
organizations.

The supposed racist predicate was with the joint use of "la racaille", which
has become a slang term with various implications depending on the idiolect
of the speaker. "La racaille" does have racist overtones when used by
extreme right people (and Sarkozy is a right-wing candidate accused of
trying to get extreme right votes). [The German origin of the term "Kärcher"
did not help.]

Nathalie Mege

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