Talk:Article 49 of the French Constitution

Gouvernement
I've had trouble translating gouvernement into English. In America, at least, "government" is much broader, including the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches. I've left untranslated and in italics for now, but other options are to just use "government" and hope people will understand or to use a word like "cabinet". Lesgles (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * My opinion on this point is of limited value, as I am not an english speaker. Cabinet sounds ok to me. I understand government does not sounds right in the US, if I translate it back in french, depending on the context, I would say "l'État" or "l'administration". It has however exactly the same meaning as in Her Majesty's Government. Gouvernement sounds strange as this is not something peculiarly french, so using a french word does not sounds appropriate to me. My 2 cents. Didup (talk) 21:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you're right, and the best solution is probably to just use "government", maybe with a note at the top explaining the difference for Americans.
 * By the way, anyone should feel free to translate more and correct my translations, which are still quite rough. Lesgles (talk) 05:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * L'Etat or le gouvernement must be translated as "central government", while "public administrations" refer to all public bodies, i.e. the central government (plus attached bodies), the local administrations and the Social Security. The State doesn't refers to the government but to the country. Pah777 (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In the context of this article, which is discussing powers invested through the French Constitution, « gouvernement » means: « the executive branch of governement », i.e. the Président of the Repubilic, the Prime Minister, Ministre d'État (Minister of State ?), and other senior ministers (Re : article 20 de la Constitution du 4 octobre 1958). Please see the article at French Wikipédia : Gouvernement français. — The US English word « cabinet », i.e. « official advisers to the President », AMHER)  has too narrow of meaning (and, in context of this article here, it does not mean something "much broader" as suggested in the opening statement above by User:Lesgles.) Best regards, Charvex (talk) 06:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clearing that up! As far as the rest of the translation goes, I stopped awhile ago because I got too muddled in all of the terminology. I might try again sometime, but I would encourage you or others more knowledgeable in French politics than I to give it a go. Lesgles (talk) 07:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

A little advice for translators
I am not an expert in law or the constitution, however, I have been reading through the existing translations (because this article is important but, alas, tedious). Here are a few words—in context of this article and this subject—that those of you who are working on it may find useful for your translations, where appropriate: If I find other frequently recurring English words that suggest closer meanings to the French of the original article, I will try to list them here. Bien amicalement, Charvex (talk) 08:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * for : gouvernement, try using : "executive branch of government," "executive branch," "executive leadership," "administration," "administration in power"
 * for : responsabilité, try using : "accountability" (for this article, often a closer meaning than "responsibility")
 * for : responsable, try using : "accountable," "to blame" (for this article, often a closer meaning than "responsible")

I'm unsure why I care about Article 49?
I am not trying to be mean here, but I meandered over here after trying to figure out how many different constitutions that France has had, and I am having trouble grasping what makes "Article 49" notable. I don't see any other wiki articles on Article 1 through Article 48... so something about this "Article 49" is important, as is also implied by the "high" importance on WikiProject France.

I found this useful sentence from the intro:

The article, which comprises four paragraphs, is designed to prevent ministerial crises like those that occurred in France under the Fourth Republic.

and this sentence at the bottom of the article:

Section 49.3 was conceived at a time when the parliament was often subject to divisions into numerous and undisciplined parties.

But I'm still oblivious as to why "Article 49" is notable. I think this article needs some updating with more history like "Why is Article 49 important?" and "What problems with the 4th republic caused the need for Article 49 in the 5th republic?" sections... and less of the dry procedures and lists about "Article 49". Azoreg (talk) 16:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * this is a translation I rescued and currently is written for a French audience that is expected to know. Not ideal of course, but we start from a translation, then edit. I have no doubt the language is stiff; academic French is very formal abd bureaucratic. Feel free to edit at will as I have had enough of it for right now, but be aware that the are provisions for both a vote of no confidence, as in parliamentary systems, but also a vote of confidence, which is what the previous translator bogged down on. The editor who made the suggestions above seems to know his/her/their stuff and at some point I should go over this for those errors, some of which I recognize as questions I had. It is also important to realize that the system is quite different from both the British and American systems.
 * But to answer your question, the significance of Article 49 is that it very carefully goes through the balance of power in the French government; the Third Republic collapsed because the government voted itself out of existence and Pétain, who was supposed to supervise the writing of a new constitution, decided to head an fascist régime that collaborated with the Nazis instead. The Constitution of the Fourth Republic intended to make sure that didn't happen again. I have not read up on the differences between the Fourth and Fifth Republic, but I believe the government was too easily dissolved still and this Constitution puts more safeguards in place. HTH Elinruby (talk) 10:31, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Government vs. Administration
As an American I must say that, any American who cares enough to read an entry about article 49 of the constitution of France probably has a clear understanding of the meaning of "government" in the context of a parliamentary or semi-presidential system versus a hard presidential system. To replace "government" with "administration" or "executive branch of government" would be, first, I suppose technically inaccurate but, second and more importantly, confusing to the vast majority of persons who will read this article; that is, people who have some functional understanding of what a "government" is in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of governance. (Notwithstanding, of course, that there are more English-speaking countries than just the United States who will all, as well, understanding this usage.) Anyway, just a thought. Bluecanary99 (talk) 05:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * As another American, ditto, plus: especially in a French context, there's the risk that "administration" will be understood in the sense of subordinate state agencies, fonction publique and the like. The word "government" should be used for the French executive in this article. All other English-speaking countries besides the US use it, and even in the US, "administration" is used primarily in speaking of its own executive branch. So: "administration" --> "government". Wegesrand (talk) 10:22, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Incomplete Translation
Hey everyone,

The English translation of this article is incomplete. There is a lot of discussion of this rule in the french media right now, so I recommend enhancing the priority of the translation. Unfortunately my french language skills are inadequate to provide a proper translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TrueManofGenius (talk • contribs) 07:26, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The translation is still 'in progress' - for 9.5 years now... Kudos for whoever finishes it! effeietsanders 18:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

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translator/researcher notes, with major caveat and question
I have volunteered to adopt this. It is important to say that while I speak French very fluently, I have no academic or professional background in either common or civil law systems, so while the translation should give a layman's overview, it should not be relied on for critical matters. (I have however translated a number of articles about the French legal system, so I am not completely ignorant, just not immune to error). As an example of the potential pitfalls, I discovered while doing other translation that the French word "crime" is in the legal sense better translated as "nisdemeanour" than "crime", although there is an obvious etymology there.

My question is this: "censure" is being translated as a "vote of no confidence" in the part that was done when I came to it. This is a concept in parliamentary systems based in the British legal systems. I am not quite certain this is accurate, and will need to research it.
 * This is the way it is being translated in the article on the suject, (ie english version of Vote de censure) so I guess I withdraw my reservation. Elinruby (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

By the way, the significance of this article, to answer a question from above, appears to be that subsequent to its adoption, if the legislative branch censures the the executive, the executive can dissolve the legislature and call for new elections.


 * Am unsure whether to translate Assemblée as Assembly. This is a literal translation and correct in that sense, but need to look at what the standard practice. Sometimes the accepted or official translation is not the same as the literal translation.
 * bipartisme and dualism also require research; may be technical terms

Elinruby (talk) 20:27, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * alinéa can mean either paragraph or subparagraph, in this context section and subsection. Which it means where my require comparison to the actual text
 * also, repeated reference to "projet" (=project) seem to relate to legislation, and are probably better translated as "legislative project" or "legislation"


 * Please add links to original, or more context, for Assemblée (most likely National Assembly), bipartisme (most likely Bipartisme → two-party system), and for "dualism" (assume you mean, "dualisme", as used in fr:Monisme et dualisme dans le régime parlementaire). Note in particular, that dualisme is about reporting responsibility in a parliamentary system, and does not correspond to bicameralism.
 * The article Dualism (politics) uses both terms (dualism, monism) as does the French article cited above, but by my reading, with a completely different meaning. It's rather confusing, so read both of them carefully. We might need more references (and definitely need more context) to tease out exactly what they are talking about wrt dualisme. Thanks, 23:29, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You are probably right. Still on first pass translation, but this is on my list of things to look at, and yes, I suspected, but was not sure, that it was not the same thing as bicameralism. will get to this soon, or if you have the links handy, feel free. I am on a first-pass, ie fairly literal, translation, and at the moment am in a section about the history. But yes. Elinruby (talk) 02:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * side note, I have been translating "governement" as "government" on first pass, in the interest of getting shit done, but as I get deeper into it increasingly agree with the comment above that it is better translated as "administration" or "exective branch". Will pay particular ttention to this on second pass. Elinruby (talk) 03:14, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Someone went through and fixed a persistent spelling of "responsibility" as "responsability" -- thanks for that. I probably would have gotten most of that myself, but generally speaking, if I don't see these things right away I may miss instances of these things. This is a differency between the French amd English spellings, if anyone is wondering. I need to walk away from this for the rest of the day at least, but let's see: yes, Assembly is the Assemblée National. I wikilinked. I believe, but need to check usage to be sure, that this is the same thing as "parliament", which repeatedly comes up. The current translation is sentence by sentence and pretty literal for the most part, although I have declined to use some of the more arcane French sentence constructions. Need to check: 'séance' has been translated as 'session', which I believe to be correct but want to check, and I want to read from the top, including the previously-translated text, as a motion of confidence and a motion of no confidence are different things and it appears they may have been confused. Not all sections of the article have the French in comments. Also, want to check the wording of this whole thing about committing the administration's responsibility to a piece of legislation. But the artcle is currently mostly translated, with one and a half sections still that contain commented French. Also still needs to be checked against the original French before it is tagged as a translation for copyright purposes. But what is here now, while flawed, probably sufficiently explains the topic for me to not feel bad about needing to go deal with real life for a day or two. I am not against anyone pitching in with some of these issues in the meantime mind you; just comment here, please, so I know what you have done. But I have said I would finish this one, so I will be back fairly soon. Elinruby (talk) 17:37, 6 October 2019 (UTC)


 * , Wrt to your comment above about checking against the French before tagging for copyright, I'll drop a message at your Talk page about translation attribution. It's a bit off-topic for a message about it here, but the gist of it is, that every edit containing translated text needs proper attribution. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Translated text of the law should not appear in this article
The actual text of the law, with the exception of brief quotations, should not be here; instead, it should be moved to Wikisource. For any questions about this, you can go to the Wikisource:Scriptorium. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 10:02, 3 October 2019 (UTC)


 * If you say this is the case, I am ok with it; it was there when I came to the article. However, can you provide a link to the text at Wikisource, please, as I found one possibly significant error in the translation of the text -- present tense translated with conditional "may", which implies a permission not a mandate -- and there may be others, as I didn't actually look at the text; that one just caught my eye. I or someone else should check that at some point, especially given my reservations about translating "censure" as "vote of no confidence". Elinruby (talk) 18:44, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * See links added above. See also cite wikisource if you want to use them in inline notes.
 * Vote of no confidence can be motion de censure (also, vote de confiance). However, censure all by itself would just be censorship, condamnation, even blackout sometimes (imposé une censure), unless it was clear from prior context that we are talking about parliamentary motions.
 * Rely on the crowd: besides all the normal ways you already know of doing word lookup, try Wikipedia itself:
 * search en-wiki for "vote of no confidence"
 * find Motion of no confidence and go to that article
 * look in left sidebar, to see if there's a French article
 * voilà! : click (or mouse over) Français to find Motion de censure
 * click to make sure: go to the French article, read the lead to make sure it's really the same thing, not just culturally similar. (It is, we're good; motion de censure → vote of no confidence, no-confidence vote, and so on.)
 * But: if the original was just "censure", no "motion de..", no parliamentary context, then it would be something else in English having to do with censorship. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 22:47, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, based on context throughout the article, here it means disapproval of what the executive is doing. My question was whether this meant censure, as in the Senate censuring Trump, or motion of no confidence, which I have previously encountered only in discussions of the Canadian and British systems. Since the civil law system of France differs considerably from the common law system of Britain, Canada and the US, I was uncertain, but somoene seems to have previously determined that they are the same thing, you are right. Elinruby (talk) 03:12, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

translator decisions
First of all, this topic is notable in that it goes to the heart of checks and balances in the French system of government. Second, and equally important, the French system of government (civil law) is quite different from the systems based on English common law and this is a warning about all existing translation about about the French legal system. The naming is confusing, but 'civil law' in this sense relates to legal systems based on the Napoleonic code, and has nothing to do with the branch of common law also known as "civil law".

I am going to go through and correct my first-pass translation as follows. I believe these decisions are correct, but if I am not at least the translation will be consistent and easily fixed with a find-replace.


 * gouvernement = administration in the executive branch, as in 'the Pompidou administration'
 * parliament = Assemblée Nationale + Senate, ie legislative branch
 * Assembly, Assemblée = Assemblée Nationale
 * commitment of responsibility = administration is willing to risk a vote of no confidence, and has introduced a 'vote of confidence' (49.2)
 * censure=vote of no confidence (49.3)

Elinruby (talk) 04:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, capitalizing "article", "section and "subsection" when they relate to specific parts of the constitution (ie, Article 49, Subsection 3) and lower-casing when this is not an actual name (ie "this subsection") Elinruby (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Fifteen years and still translation problems?
It is imperative that an "english translation" as https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Fifth_French_Republic_(original_text) purports to be, should be understandable as English, with subjects, verbs, etc. Certain parts of the current text are not so and don't make sense.

The problems of the different meanings of words such as Government, Administration, Executive, State, Assembly, Responsibility, Accountability, Censure, etc in Napoleonic Code places versus English Common Law and U.S. Constitutional Law places, is that in a constitution these are legal, technical terms and shouldn't be translated. The text itself should define them, as it does in the original language. The approach of Wikipedia articles to use italicized, original-french words as technical terms when needed is the best way make the English translation readable and understandable.

Also, in an important text such as Constitution_of_the_Fifth_French_Republic, there should be numerous translator's footnotes when needed, elucidating the exact meaning and why the particular English words or phrases were chosen. They could also remind the reader of the section in the document where the term is defined or further explained.

The copyright issue citing William Pickles' French Constitution of October 4th, 1958 is a non-issue. Although it is unclear from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#European_Union whether the text of all laws are in the public domain, fr.wikisource.org has the text. Only copying the work of a publication by cut&paste is a violation, when choosing the words of a text are not actually an author's work. Surely English Wikimedia has enough skilled French speakers to check each sentence of the French document, particularly if the above procedure regarding key technical terms is implemented. Many laws are published as Annotated Editions by various publishers, this translation would be Wikimedia's. When this is done, Pickles should be removed as the primary source, and the French listed.71.230.16.111 (talk) 08:41, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It isn't clear to me what it is you are proposing. If you dislike the Pickles translation for specific reasons and wish to improve it, for starters you can address that at the Talk page there. (Note the new location; since you wrote, the page has moved.) I agree about lots of transator's notes, but once again, these are comments that would be best addressed at Wikisource. Leaving comments here about it will result in no action being taken. Finally, not sure what you meant by your comment about Wikimedia having French translators. Any translations would be done by Wikisource volunteer editors, i.e., you, me, and anyone else who wishes to help out; Wikimedia is uninvolved, except for writing the software that powers the platform. Mathglot (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Left/Liberal
Calling the current (2023) Prime Minister of France "Left" when adding it is a bit strange. It should be in the right column. Theklan (talk) 09:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * We are talking about the table at Article_49_of_the_French_Constitution. I agree that if one must categorize Élisabeth Borne into either "left" or "right" columns, it should be "right".
 * But I would question the premise of the table entirely; this seems to be an exercise in WP:OR and POV-pushing (take your pick between "the left is using that anti-democratic device more often" or "the parliamentary right is a bunch of yes-men so rightist governments do not use it; the left has more vigorous internal debates"). Also, FWIW, I find that OR analysis extremely stupid. Yes, Borne used it much more than her predecessors on a per-month basis; is it because of her political orientation, or because she is the first PM to not have an outright majority in parliament?
 * None of the sources given around the table include a left-right split. A "uses per month" split by PM is fine, a separation between left and right isn’t. Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 11:18, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Dropped French text, and hidden comments containing annotations about translation issues
The article had a large amount of text in French copied verbatim from the French article and placed between hidden text delimiters, along with hidden notes and advice calling attention to various issues of translation. These have been resolved in, reducing the wikicode size by 35kb, while barely changing the rendered page at all.

All of the notes and advice have been converted to clarify or clarify span templates, mostly with the original annotations intact in the reason parameter. Clarify has a (small) visible profile inline as a superscript tag to attract the attention of editors or translators who may wish to research the issue to see if there's a translation issue that requires attention. (Hovering over the tag in desktop mode will display a tooltip popup with the text of the original advice or annotation.) A Proofreader needed banner has been placed atop the article, with a summary of some of the (possibly) remaining issues, via the reason param.

All of the original verbatim French text has been removed from the article. All of this text is available at the French article, linked from the left sidebar. In addition, freezing the French text by importing it into hidden sections in this article may grow stale as the French article improves, adds citations, or just generally is improved and expanded; it's much better for any editor who ends up here to examine the then current state of the French article, and not depend on stale text pasted into the article as a hidden comment. If there are known areas involving questionable meaning of the original, or translation difficulties for particular phrases, please add more clarify span tags as needed. Adding User:Elinruby, as I think much of the more recent expansion was yours.

Finally, in general, editors at fr-wiki are much more lax about following requirements for verifiability and WP:Sourcing, and there's often an appalling amount of original research there, not to mention just, plain, muddy writing. So feel free to just skip translating any section that doesn't deserve it (even if sourced), and often that can be the whole article. As often as not, when I find some French article that needs translating, I end up writing it from scratch, either translating nothing, or only certain well-written, clearly well-sourced portions of it; so much of fr-wiki is not worth translating, especially the older stuff. (That would be true of our older articles, too, for anyone considering translating them into some other language, so this isn't just a one-way street.) I'll probably do some slash-and-burn of some of the unsourced sections, or slap tags on them, and leave it for later or for someone else to bother about. Mathglot (talk) 04:12, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I do that when translating. Apparently I didn't finish that article. But sure, feel free.to do whatever you think needs doing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 19:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Spike in viewership 500x normal on 16 March 2023
Normally, this article gets around 20 to 40 page views a day, and then out of nowhere, it shot up to over 13,000 on 16 March. This was very likely caused by the article, "What Is Article 49.3 of the French Constitution?" published in the New York Times on 16 March, the same day viewership spiked at Wikipedia. Mathglot (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikisource link
(Constitution of the Fifth Republic) not working. Elinruby (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Engager
the following was uncited and (probably correctly) flagged as OR. Do we actually even need it? "To engage" is pretty close in meaning (?). Anyway, I personally don't object to it if it's cited and we need it for something Elinruby (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2023 (UTC) "In French law, the simple present indicative tense connotes a requirement rather than a simple option: 'engage' means 'must commit' and not 'may commit'. The word éventuellement ('possibly') in the declaration of general policy and the phrase peut engager ('may commit') in Section 3 reinforce the compulsory nature of the commitment to a program, where this conditional phrasing is not used."

to be clear, this use of the conditional in French is not always clear to speakers of other languages and it does seem like OR  to draw a conclusion from its absence. Elinruby (talk) 19:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: spin off 49.3
Section is getting quite long, and I propose we spin it off per WP:SS as Article 49 paragraph 3 of the French Constitution (or '49.3') leaving a summary in place here. The French article fr:Article 49 alinéa 3 de la Constitution française already exists (44kb). There was lively discussion at the French talk page (here) about how to entitle it, with the long version winning out, but support for different wording in the lead sentence and in liberal use of the "49.3" abbreviation elsewhere. Mathglot (talk) 21:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * i am ok with a spinoff it it is getting long Elinruby (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)