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French prez Nicolas Sarkozy tells man, "Get lost, you stupid bastard"

by Aaron Hotfelder (RSS feed) on Feb 26th 2008 at 9:40AM

Is Nicolas Sarkozy the new "Leave Britney Alone" guy? Following the success of his Youtube video "Sarkozy drunk at G8," the French president is now starring in a new video that has already become an internet sensation:

If your French is rusty, here's what happened in the above video: Sarkozy was walking through a crowd at an agricultural show in France, when he approached a man who told him, "No, don't touch me. You disgust me."

Sarkozy responded with "Casse-toi alors, casse-toi alors pauvre con," which translates roughly to, "Get lost, you stupid bastard." Various news organizations have reported the translation differently. Reuters replaces "stupid bastard" with "dumb ass"; the AP chose "total jerk"; the BBC went with "bloody idiot."

Any native French speakers out there care to help out with the translation?

Filed under: France, Video, News

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

AskTheAdmin Feb 26th 2008 9:57AM

It means Don't touch me, you're making me dirty! but just as American slang means different things to different people some would say it means:

get lost, asshole or fu*k off jerk. It depends on who is listening to it.

Either which way it is not becoming words for a national leader!

Karl Gechlik | http://www.askTheAdmin.com

Eva Feb 26th 2008 10:14AM

Hmm, I think these news organizations are avoiding the direct translation. As an adjective "con" means stupid or inept, but as a noun - which is how it's used here - it means cunt, at least according to my Larousse.

It's always tough to translate slang, though.

Anna Brones Feb 26th 2008 10:32AM

I would say "get lost you poor bastard" is a pretty good translation. And the BBC's "bloody idiot" is British slang for the same thing.
Oh Sarko, what would we do without you to keep us amused?

B Feb 27th 2008 9:40AM

Being a French native speaker, I would all the translations here are ok.
The only main thing is that a President should definitely not say these things especially during this kind of Official Event. As you may imagine it's spinning quite out-of-control in France now ;)
BTW CON can mean either ASSHOLE/IDIOT or CUNT in its "noun" form

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