Talk:Article 49 of the French Constitution

message: 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:
*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")
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)
thread_title:  A little advice for translators 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Government vs. Administration 

message: 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)
replies: text: The translation is still 'in progress' - for 9.5 years now... Kudos for whoever finishes it! effeietsanders 18:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incomplete Translation 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080227112926/http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/parliament/function/legal/germanbasiclaw.pdf to http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/parliament/function/legal/germanbasiclaw.pdf
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070930115130/http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/stat-49-3.pdf to http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/stat-49-3.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: 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)
thread_title:  translator decisions 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Fifteen years and still translation problems?  

message: 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  or  templates, mostly with the original annotations intact in the  parameter.  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  banner has been placed atop the article, with a summary of some of the (possibly) remaining issues, via the  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  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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Dropped French text, and hidden comments containing annotations about translation issues 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Spike in viewership 500x normal on 16 March 2023 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Engager 

message: 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)
replies: text: i am ok with a spinoff it it is getting long Elinruby (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: spin off 49.3