French word of the Day: Macaron

Local France

11 hours ago

Why do I need to know macaron?
Because you might be confused about why your car needs a cake.
What does it mean?
The most common use of
macaron
- roughly pronounced as mah-cah-rohn - is in the world of pâtisserie. They are delicious small cakes made of two almond-based discs sandwiched together with a cream filling. They come in a variety of different colours and flavours and are, as we might have already mentioned, delicious.
If you're invited to a French person's house for dinner or drinks and you want to
take a small gift
you can never go wrong with a nice box of
macarons
from your local pâtisserie.
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There is, however, a second usage that might be familiar to motorists.
This one refers to a small round sticker that you put in your windscreen showing that you have a permit or permission to be in a certain place. The most common use is for residents' parking - you display the sticker to show that you are a resident and can therefore park on the street.
There are other types of
macaron
, however, for example to show you can access staff parking or even displaying a cross-border worker status for frontier crossings.
You might see street signs warning that a
macaron
is required for this area.
France also has a handy little app that aims to bring all the various different parking schemes together in one place - it is called macaron.ai.
The other commonly used phrase for a sticker, usually displayed in a car, is
une vignette
.
Neither cake nor sticker should be confused with the (current) French president - he is Macron, with no 'a'.
Use it like this
Les riverains peuvent bénéficier d'un macaron gratuit leur permettant de stationner sans durée limitée
- Residents can get a free sticker which entitles them to unlimited parking
Pas de parking, sauf macaron
- No parking, except for sticker holders
J'ai oublié d'afficher mon macaron et j'ai reçu une amende
- I forgot to display my pass, so I got a parking fine
Les macarons pistache sont les meilleurs, sans aucun doute
- Pistachio macarons are the best, no question.