"The French speak to the French."
In his sizzling microphone, General de Gaulle, from his headquarters in London, addresses his compatriots.
He enjoins them to join the French resistance, and kick out of the territory the
“Bochons”
, the
“Bruns”
, the “
Kanaks
”, the
“first cousins”
, the
“fridolins”
, the
“frogs”
.
This is how Serge Kastell describes the Nazis in his
Dictionary of French under the Occupation. Words of Resistance, Collaboration and Daily Life, France-Belgium (1940-1945)
, published in 2013 by Grancher editions. We discover a plethora of words and formulas from the daily life of the French in occupied countries, but also the lexicon of the Resistance, the maquis, the militia, the detainees. Did you know, for example, that the
“Feldgendarmen”
(gendarmes of the German army) were nicknamed by the refractory population
“award-winning cows”
, or
“bib cows”,
to refer to “
the gorget they were carrying”
?
"Sprinkler"
,
"letterbox"
,
"pacifier"
... Will you find the hidden meaning of these terms of the Resistance? Test your knowledge with this
Figaro
test
.
