Le bruit et l'odeur

"Le Bruit et l'odeur" refers to a speech given in 1991 by the mayor of Paris and later French president Jacques Chirac; it translates as "noise and smell."

This is an excerpt from the speech:

Comment voulez-vous que le travailleur français qui travaille avec sa femme et qui ensemble gagnent environ 15 000 FF et qui voit sur le palier à côté de son HLM entassée, une famille avec un père de famille, trois ou quatre épouses et une vingtaine de gosses et qui gagne 50 000FF de prestations sociales sans naturellement travailler. Si vous ajoutez à cela le bruit et l'odeur, eh bien le travailleur français sur le palier, il devient fou. Et ce n'est pas être raciste que de dire cela. Nous n'avons plus les moyens d'honorer le regroupement familial et il faut enfin ouvrir le débat qui s'impose dans notre pays qui est un vrai débat moral pour savoir si il est naturel que les étrangers puissent bénéficier au même titre que les Français d'une solidarité nationale à laquelle ils ne participent pas puisqu'ils ne payent pas d'impôts.

English translation: How do you want a French worker who works with his wife, who both earn about 15.000 FF and who sees next to his piled-up council house, a family with a father “of the family”, three or four spouses and scores of children earning 50.000 FF via benefits without them working naturally? If you add that to the noise and smell, oh well, the French worker goes mad. And it is not racist to say this. We have no longer the means of honouring the family regrouping, and finally, it is necessary to start a debate essential in this country to know whether it is natural that foreign people profit as well as French people in a national solidarity where they have no part in it as they don’t pay taxes.

In this speech, Chirac contrasts the situation of older generations of immigrants (coming from Spain, Portugal or Poland) to what he considers the current "overdose" of immigration, mostly from Muslim Arabs and Blacks. He deplores the situation of working-class French who have trouble making ends meet and see next door some immigrant family, with a man, three or four spouses and a host of children, living off welfare and not working — and generating noise and foul smells.

He then explains that in such conditions, the French worker, without being a racist, is bound to become mad (this is called a refutation in rhetoric) — an explanation of the successes of Jean-Marie Le Pen, campaigning on anti-immigrant platform.

This speech became famous when it was sampled by the French band Zebda on their song "Le bruit et l'odeur" in 1995 from the album by the same name. Some members of the group Zebda are ethnically Maghrebine, others ethnically European.

Zebda - Le bruit et l'odeur - “Le bruit et l'odeur” 1995

See also

• Welfare reform

External references

• Template:Fr Part of Chirac's speech and other quotations