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22 February 2005 Systeme DAndrew Denny asks what Systeme D means. Ian Ousby, in 'Occupation - the ordeal of France 1940-1944', has as good a definition as any: "The French have a verb, se debrouiller, and a corresponding noun, debrouillardise, which like all the words for things most cherished by the speakers of a particular language are multiple and elusive in their meaning. "Se debrouiller means, approximately, 'to manage', 'to get by', 'to fend for oneself', 'to look out for oneself', in certain contexts 'to wangle' or 'to weasel out of'. Debrouillardaise is thus an admirable resourcefulness. "Together these terms have generated a slang idiom, le systeme D. It serves as watchword for a society which has, at different points in its past, variously prided itself on peasant independence and republican individualism but always on its knack of simultaneously subverting and accommodating itself to officialdom." Comments
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