French phrase of the Day: L'état de droit

Local France

3 days ago

Why do I need to know l'état de droit?
Because it's a fundamental principle of any democracy.
What does it mean?
L'état de droit
- pronounced lay tat de dwah - literally translates as 'the state of right' but its real meaning is 'the state of law' - or the principle that a society should be governed by laws and a justice system.
It's usually used as the opposite of vigilante justice, or the idea of people taking the law into their own hands and administering their own punishments to people they feel have wronged them.
The most common use of it has a slightly clumsy near-repetition -
L'Etat de droit doit primer
- the rule of law must prevail.
Advertisement
The French word
droit
means right in the sense of the opposite of left (
gauche
).
But it also means right as in the political right (in fact the whole concept of a political right and a political left comes from the layout of the French parliament) and also means 'rights' in the sense of fundamental entitlements of a person of group. When talking about 'rights' it is plural (
droits
), just as in English.
Use it like this
Le respect des droits de l'homme et des libertés fondamentales, ainsique de l'État de droit, principes qui sont communs aux États membres
- Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, along with the rule of law, are common values for EU member states.
Sans l'état de droit, nous aurions une société de justiciers
- Without the rule of law, we would have a vigilante society
Évidemment, nous comprenons l'émotion de ce père de famille : comment agirions-nous à la place de cette personne, il est difficile de le dire. Ce que je peux vous dire comme porte-parole du gouvernement, c'est ma conviction profonde que l'État de droit doit primer et que nous ne souhaitons pas rentrer dans ce modèle de société où les gens se feraient justice eux-mêmes.
Clearly we understand the emotions of this family man; how we would act in his place it's difficult to say. What I can tell you as the government spokesman is my deep conviction that the rule of law must prevail and that we do not wish to enter a model of society where people take the law into their own hands. [Quote from former government spokesman Olivier Véran,
via Le Parisien
]