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Jun 3, 2020 07:52
3 yrs ago
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French term

pantouflage/pantoufle

French to English Other Government / Politics

pantouflage
Arg. des écoles, fam. Trouver une pantoufle (v. ce mot B 2), quitter le service de l'État pour entrer dans le secteur privé.

https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pantouflage


pantoufle
B2. Arg. des écoles, fam. Situation trouvée dans le secteur privé par un militaire ou un fonctionnaire issu de l'École polytechnique ou p.ext. d'une grande école et qui renonce à l'armée ou aux autres services de l'État.
https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pantoufle

I would add that nowadays, it is used generally for just any top civil servant (not necessarily from Polytechnique) that gets a top cushy job in a (usually large) company.

Useful bit from Le Grand Robert: "Quitter le service de l'État pour entrer dans une entreprise privée (au besoin en payant un dédit appelé pantoufle)".

I can explain in English what it means, but is there a slangy/colloquial word for pantouflage in (preferrably UK) English?

Thank you, comme d'hab !
Proposed translations (English)
4 +3 revolving doors
5 +1 Revolving doors
3 +2 civil servants landing cushy jobs in the private sector
4 the resignation of the top civil servants with a view to cushy jobs in the private sector
4 buying their way in
4 -1 pantouflage [cushy jobs for French civil servants]
4 -1 getting a sinecure / giving a sinecure (to ex-civil servants)

Discussion

ph-b (X) (asker) Jun 8, 2020:
Daryo, Please refer to "I can explain in English what it means, but is there a slangy/colloquial word for pantouflage in (preferrably UK) English?" If you must know, I chose this answer because it's the one I find most helpful (sorry, Hicham, you were just a few minutes late). If there's no actual slangy/colloquial word in English, and that would appear to be the case on the basis of the answers that have been received, this will have to do in a conversation.
Daryo Jun 8, 2020:
@ ph-b this part:

"... which move was made easier by pantouflage et portes tournantes (17.15 minutes)."

The "et" between "pantouflage" AND "portes tournantes" shows clearly that these are two different concepts (mentioned together as they are closely related BUT NOT THE SAME)

"portes tournante" = "revolving door" but then how can "pantouflage" ALSO be "revolving doors"?
ph-b (X) (asker) Jun 8, 2020:
Thank you to all of you for your comments and answers.
ph-b (X) (asker) Jun 3, 2020:
Clarification in case it's needed: pantouflage is not the same thing as "sinecure", "a position which involves little work, but for which the person is paid" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/sin... No one is saying les pantouflards don't do the work they get paid for. It may be easy work, i.e. using their address book and their knowledge of how things work at the top of the State, but they do work. All it means is that they move rather freely from top civil service positions to top positions in the private sector. And back, as can happen.

Nor must it be mistaken for renvoi d'ascenseur, i.e. recruiting someone because they helped you/did you a favour when they were in the civil service.
Philippa Smith Jun 3, 2020:
a couple of recent examples https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/21/boris-...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7293017/Revolving-d...
ph-b (X) (asker) Jun 3, 2020:
Philippa, No other context really than me wondering how I would say this if discussing it with UK friends after I heard it on the news this morning. Can't find the original news bulletin now, but France Culture repeated it at lunchtime today, starting16.35 minutes into this: https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/journal-de-12h30/jour... Re context, they're saying (my rough summary) that NGOs are worried that cos tried to use déconfinement and the need to boost the economy to get rid of social/environmental laws and regulations, which move was made easier by pantouflage et portes tournantes (17.15 minutes).
Philippa Smith Jun 3, 2020:
@AllegroTrans I hear you, but I can't agree. It's not a new term and has been around for a long time, well before Trump's administration. People know what it means - in the context, when you're clearly not talking about actual doors. If you said "the revolving doors problem in the French civil service" the context is clear and understandable.

But it would be interesting to know the context of the sentence/paragraph here. Unless the asker just wanted to know what the UK equivalent was...
AllegroTrans Jun 3, 2020:
The problem If I tell a British person that there is a phenomenon of "revolving doors" in the French civil service, without further explanation, they patently won't have a clue what I am talking about, given that the BBC and the media in general have been using the term to describe what's been going on in the Trump administration. Whereas, if I tell a French person about "le pantouflage des fonctionnaires" they clearly will understand.
Therein lies the problem
ph-b (X) (asker) Jun 3, 2020:
Larousse / R+ C Larousse not accessible on line this morning, apparently, and R+C not really helpful: a def more than a translation. Isn't there any?

Proposed translations

+3
21 mins
Selected

revolving doors

I know the expression well from all the articles about it in the magazine Private Eye!
Reference:

https://trends.levif.be/economie/politique-economique/pantouflage-ou-revolving-doors-les-liaisons-dangereuses-finance-politique-sous-les-cri

Peer comment(s):
agree Elisabeth Richard
34 mins
Thanks Elisabeth!
agree writeaway : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
37 mins
Thanks writeaway!
neutral AllegroTrans : My misgiving with this is that the term is now widely used to describe the series of top level White House staff who Donald Trump has sacked; an EN-spkg reader is unlikely to understand the French term pantouflage without a better explanation
1 hr
The asker specifies UK English, and in the UK people know what revolving doors are.
agree Suzie Withers : Also a Private Eye reader and this was the first thing that came to mind
1 hr
:-) Thanks Suzie!
agree Carol Gullidge : this does appear to be ONE of the possible meanings, although I do share Allegro's misgiving/Well I have agreed with you! It's just that there are other meanings/uses as well for revolving doors that could possibly confuse the issue
3 hrs
Thanks Carol. I honestly don't understand the misgiving, seems pretty straightforward to me. The phenomenon known as "pantouflage" here is known as "revolving doors" in the UK./Yes, thank you for the agree. Do you mean confusion over actual doors??
disagree Francois Boye : The revolving door goes both ways while pantouflage means leaving the civil service to go and work for the private sector
5 hrs
It can, but it's usually used to mean govt officials going into the private sector and using their contacts, cf. my links in discussion.
agree Chris Pr
7 hrs
Thanks Chris!
disagree Daryo : "the revolving door" is a closely related concept [the merry-go-around of the same people between the state and private sector] but "pantouflage" is about getting a sinecure in the private sector (thanks to the said "revolving door")
7 hrs
neutral Libby Cohen : Am on the fence about this; would agree with you only if the French term implies that there's a SINISTER aspect (lobbying/influencing). Per Investopedia: shuffling back & forth between private and public sectors to lobby and exert influence.
10 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
+1
29 mins

Revolving doors

Pantouflage: The term pantouflage refers to a practice by which high-level French civil servants, usually former students of the École Polytechnique or the École nationale d'administration, obtain work in private enterprise
Example sentence:

le pantouflage entre la fonction publique et le secteur privé

Revolving doors between public office and the private sector

Reference:

https://www.linguee.com/english-french/search?source=auto&query=pantouflage

Peer comment(s):
agree Elisabeth Richard
25 mins
Thanks
agree Margaret Morrison : Agreed. Do you think it comes from an idea that you only have to shuffle round to another job in your slippers (ie, without even going outside)?
1 hr
Thanks
neutral AllegroTrans : My misgiving with this is that the term is now widely used to describe the series of top level White House staff who Donald Trump has sacked; an EN-spkg reader is unlikely to understand the French term pantouflage without a better explanation
1 hr
agree Suzie Withers
1 hr
disagree Francois Boye : The revolving door goes both ways while pantouflage means leaving the civil service to go and work for the private sector
5 hrs
disagree Daryo : "the revolving door" is a closely related concept [the merry-go-around of the same people between the state and private sector] but "pantouflage" is about getting a sinecure in the private sector (thanks to the said "revolving door")
7 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
2 hrs

pantouflage [cushy jobs for French civil servants]

I cannot locate a single word that in any way conveys this specifically French phenomenon. "Revolving doors" conjures up images of the shenanigans at the White House and wouldn't mean anything in the French context.

I would leave the term in French and give a short explanation in brackets, otherwise an average EN-speaker won't understand this.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2020-06-03 10:15:58 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

The White House revolving door: Who's gone?

25 November 2019

Donald Trump's administration has had a very high turnover - with senior officials quitting, being fired or getting eased out at a record pace.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39826934
Peer comment(s):
agree Sheila Wilson : Yes, however correct "revolving doors" is, I think it would mislead a lot of readers nowadays
1 hr
thank you
disagree Francois Boye : Unclear! Why? Because those who 'pantouflent' have the best jobs in the civil service!
3 hrs
you have used almost the same expression so why disagree?
disagree Daryo : the concept of "revolving doors" of the kind mentioned in this ST (implied: between the civil service and the private sector) predates Trump by decades, if not a whole century or two and has nothing to do with the texts you quoted.
6 hrs
Maybe so but clarity is needed for a British reader in the French concept. The text I quoted is to show how this can be confused with the term referring to the White House, i.e. the totally negative connotation (being sacked by Trump)
Something went wrong...
6 hrs

the resignation of the top civil servants with a view to cushy jobs in the private sector

pantouflage is an opportunity for the top civil servants of France to make megabucks in the private sector.

The top civil servants are not trained by universities. Les Grandes Ecoles (ENA, Polytechnique, Ecole des Mines, Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees etc..) are in charge of training top civil servants in France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_école

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantouflage



After reaching the top of the civil service, those graduates from les Grandes Ecoles turn to the private sector to make more money.

NB: This system is about to change because President Macron decided last year to open the access to ENA to all the professionals of France, regardless of whether they had graduated from a Grande Ecole.

NB: The US revolving door became a French practice when Emmanuel Macron became president of France. The reason is that many current technocrats who rallied around Macron's campaign are coming from the private sector, which they joined after they had been civil servants.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_école

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantouflage#:~:text=Le terme «...
Peer comment(s):
neutral Daryo : correct, but it's more an explanation - too long for a translation.
1 hr
because the word pantouflage has no equivalent in the UK/US//translate public school in French: be my guest!
neutral AllegroTrans : not only is too long but it basically repeats my own suggestion
2 hrs
because the word pantouflage has no equivalent in the UK/US//Translate public school in French: be my guest!
Something went wrong...
-1
8 hrs

getting a sinecure / giving a sinecure (to ex-civil servants)

you could possibly argue that "a sinecure" would not be often heard on the Clapham omnibus, but that's the nearest I can think of.

The "revolving door" that makes this possible is about the same people moving to and fro between the civil service and private companies. The "operation manual" of THAT "revolving door" goes as follows:

Step one: a private company lets an expert quit and join the civil service.

Step two: by a happy accident the same expert happens to be in charge of regulating the business they quit.

Step three: in recognition of services rendered by this civil/public servant to the private company (by pushing legislation that is favourable to the company's interests) the civil servant is welcomed back and given "une pantoufle" - a sinecure.
Peer comment(s):
disagree AllegroTrans : Sinecure is pejorative and doesn’t reflect the usual reality in the private sector//asker has ruled out sinecure
55 mins
That's certainly not the reality for the majority of people working in the private sector (agree on that), but the chosen few landing themselves une pantoufle are subjected to a different set of rules ...
Something went wrong...
+2
10 hrs

civil servants landing cushy jobs in the private sector

A bit long compared to the French but...
Reference:

https://books.google.fr/books?id=RB03DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT297&lpg=PT297&dq=civil+servant+landing+cushy+jobs&source=bl&ots=-CK1JsGaBi&sig=ACfU3U1h5z

Peer comment(s):
agree Ben Gaia : This is the most direct equivalent, though see my suggestion "buying their way in".
3 hrs
Thanks.
agree GILLES MEUNIER
11 hrs
Thanks Gilou
Something went wrong...
14 hrs

buying their way in

(to a cushy job in the Private Sector.)
From the french definition given it sounds like some money is laid out, so this phrase would cover it without anyone needing to revolve.
Peer comment(s):
neutral AllegroTrans : not sure if money is involved, more like an old boys' network
10 mins
neutral Elisabeth Richard : I agree with AllegroTrans. It does make sense though if you reverse the expression and say the private companies are buying their way in governments policy knowledge and networks.
14 hrs
Something went wrong...
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