# fuite en avant



## treetrotter

Can anyone give me a translation of 'fuite en avant'?

Thanks


----------



## LV4-26

I was thinking of _blind escape _but I'm not sure. Wait for the natives.

EDIT : I'm not sure because _fuite en avant_ doesn't necesarily refer to escaping anything (except reason maybe). It's what you do when you keep going ahead without reasoning and taking the possible consequences into account. When you can't think of any better solution than going ahead and ahead.


----------



## edwingill

headlong rush


----------



## Jean-Michel Carrère

*c'est la fuite en avant : they are on a collision course*


----------



## LV4-26

edwingill said:
			
		

> headlong rush


 That sounds much better.
There's an unreasonable feeling to _fuite en avant_. Is it conveyed by _headlong_ _rush_ or would we need to add an adjective, like : a _mad _headlong rush?


----------



## Amityville

Another thread on fuite en avant


----------



## Jean-Michel Carrère

Credits for "collision course" go to Isotta who suggested this in the aforementioned thread (I am afraid I am hopeless at using the search function on the forum).


----------



## zam

treetrotter said:
			
		

> Can anyone give me a translation of 'fuite en avant'?
> 
> Thanks


 
What's the full sentence/context ?


----------



## treetrotter

No specific context - it's an expression that keeps cropping up and I'm never quite sure of its exact meaning, even though I find myself using it when I speak either French or English. However, all your replies have pushed me to look it up in Le Petit Robert. Here's what it says: Fuite en avant: accéleration d'un processus (politique, économique) jugé nécessaire bien que dangereux;fait d'accompagner une évolution que l'on ne peut contrôler.


----------



## treetrotter

PS  in a previous thread quoted upstream in this thread, someone had suggested : 'attack as the best form of defense'. This seems to catch the meaning I had somehow accredited to the original French expression.


----------



## LV4-26

Jean-Michel Carrère said:
			
		

> Credits for "collision course" go to Isotta who suggested this in the aforementioned thread


Isotta or Amityville?


----------



## Jean-Michel Carrère

All credits and apologies to Amityville     !


----------



## timpeac

Judging from your explanations of "fuite en avant" "headlong rush" sounds excellent to me. I don't think collision course words because you have to be on a collision course _with_ something specific - Amity's suggestion was actually "on a collision course with the future". I haven't heard this idiom before personally and so prefer the "headlong rush" which to me suggests "without looking where you are going first".


----------



## zam

treetrotter said:
			
		

> PS in a previous thread quoted upstream in this thread, someone had suggested : 'attack as the best form of defense'. This seems to catch the meaning I had somehow accredited to the original French expression.


 
_(ATILF)_
_PSYCHOLOGIE_
Fuite en avant: Mécanisme inconscient qui pousse à se jeter dans le danger qu'on redoute`

I don't think there's a neat phrasal equivalent in english to 'fuite en avant' but I like 'collision course' and 'mad headlong rush' (especially if the topic is to do with economics/politics), they would work well in most instances. 
'a relentless pursuit' is OK as well in some contexts, 
'a slippery slope' (in the sense of 'refusal to face one's problems' -e.g 
a societal situation that could deteriorate to the point of getting out of control) could also work.


----------



## timpeac

zam said:
			
		

> _(ATILF)_
> _PSYCHOLOGIE_
> Fuite en avant: Mécanisme inconscient qui pousse à se jeter dans le danger qu'on redoute`
> 
> I don't think there's a neat phrasal equivalent in english to 'fuite en avant' but I like 'collision course' and 'mad headlong rush' (especially if the topic is to do with economics/politics), they would work well in most instances.
> 'a relentless pursuit' is OK as well in some contexts,
> 'a slippery slope' (in the sense of 'refusal to face one's problems' -e.g
> a societal situation that could deteriorate to the point of getting out of control) could also work.


 
Does the French phrase mean that something bad will happen? If it does then "on a collision course" "on a slippery slope" are fine. However if the nuance is just that you are rushing quickly forward without looking first then these are not appropriate (you can have a rush headlong home because you left the gas on and it is the right thing to do, it doesn't suggest you had an accident on the way, for example) and I would go for the neutral "headlong rush" which just expresses that you are not prudently checking where you are going, but does not suggest that because of this lack of looking you will have problems.


----------



## zam

timpeac said:
			
		

> Does the French phrase mean that something bad will happen? If it does then "on a collision course" "on a slippery slope" are fine. However if the nuance is just that you are rushing quickly forward without looking first then these are not appropriate (you can have a rush headlong home because you left the gas on and it is the right thing to do, it doesn't suggest you had an accident on the way, for example) and I would go for the neutral "headlong rush" which just expresses that you are not prudently checking where you are going, but does not suggest that because of this lack of looking you will have problems.


 
Here's the gist of what I've found in various dictionaries:
-a) It's the acceleration of a process that is deemed necessary (but dangerous)
b) It's also the fact of going along with an evolution or a development/a process of change that cannot be controlled easily

But if you google in the phrase, you'll see it used in lots of different guises (sometimes even meaning 'if X/Governement does not face up to his/their problems, things will spiral out of control'). Also can be used to mean= 'evading an issue'/'put one's head in the sand' (ostrich politics)/'brush things under the carpet -in the hope that trouble will go away.


----------



## timpeac

Thanks for the examples, Zam.

In that case for a) I would go for "headlong rush" beacause "collision course" suggests that something bad _will _happen if you continue.

For b), I will reflect further. It might be easier if you could express the sentence in French, to be sure of how to translate this usage of "fuite en avant" into English, rather than paraphrasing it in English?

For the googling - similarly for the "spiral out of control" nuance could you express this use of "fuite en avant" in French so I can comment?

For the googling meaning "evading an issue" I would go for a "headlong flight" rather than "headlong rush" since this adds the extra nuance of fleeing something, but keeps the "headlong" idea of not looking where you're going first.

There's no need to paraphrase French examples in English rather than talking about it directly you know - this is a bilingual forum...we would preferably see an equal amount of both languages on average so that all speakers can learn from other's usages and practice their own in the language that is foreign to them.


----------



## LV4-26

Difficult question. Surely, a _fuite en avant_ hugely increases the risk of having something bad happen. But the emphasis is more on the fact that you won't stop until you collide with something than on the actual collision. I don't know if I'm being clear. The important thing isn't that you're going to have problems (even though it's looming behind the expression) but that it's leading nowhere and it will never end until you have those problems.

In the eyes of the speaker, _une fuite en avant_ is never the right thing to do. So you wouldn't use it to mean that you're rushing back home to turn the gas off.


----------



## timpeac

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Difficult question. Surely, a _fuite en avant_ hugely increases the risk of having something bad happen. But the emphasis is more on the fact that you won't stop until you collide with something than on the actual collision. I don't know if I'm being clear. The important thing isn't that you're going to have problems (even though it's looming behind the expression) but that it's leading nowhere and it will never end until you have those problems.


 
Then Zam's "slippery slope" is quite good for this nuance, trouble is that it doesn't necessarily express the speed of a "fuite". I'll think on.

Edit - how about "on a road to nowhere", then you can add the verb as appropriate "fleeing from country to country on a road to nowhere" "the government's drug policy is on a road to nowhere", but perhaps that's not negative enough...


----------



## zam

timpeac said:
			
		

> Thanks for the examples, Zam.
> 
> In that case for a) I would go for "headlong rush" beacause "collision course" suggests that something bad _will _happen if you continue.
> 
> For b), I will reflect further. It might be easier if you could express the sentence in French, to be sure of how to translate this usage of "fuite en avant" into English, rather than paraphrasing it in English?
> 
> For the googling - similarly for the "spiral out of control" nuance could you express this use of "fuite en avant" in French so I can comment?
> 
> For the googling meaning "evading an issue" I would go for a "headlong flight" rather than "headlong rush" since this adds the extra nuance of fleeing something, but keeps the "headlong" idea of not looking where you're going first.
> 
> There's no need to paraphrase French examples in English rather than talking about it directly you know - this is a bilingual forum...we would preferably see an equal amount of both languages on average so that all speakers can learn from other's usages and practice their own in the language that is foreign to them.


 
I know it's a bilingual forum, that is why I provided a definition in French as well from ATILF (post #14), should make everybody happy then !
I've provided plenty of examples and definitions (in addition to the many excellent ones suggested previously) for teetrotter to choose from, this will give him/her food for thought, that's for sure !


----------



## timpeac

zam said:
			
		

> I know it's a bilingual forum, that is why I provided a definition in French as well from ATILF (post #14), should make everybody happy then !


 
Not really. There is little point in talking about usage of a French word by describing what the usage means in English - how can we know if there is a usage of the phrase "fuite en avant" which should be translated as "spiral out of control"? You may well be right, but please provide the original examples in future - it is human nature not to take things at face value so if you don't provide back up examples for your opinions people will just read straight past them and any valuable insight you might have provided is lost, as is the opinion of others who may have a different or possibly more appropriate interpretation.


This is made clear in the WR rules, please check through them to ensure you are familiar with them, particularly 10 and 11.

http://forum.wordreference.com/faq.php?faq=faq_forum_rules_header#faq_rules_faq

You say that you have provided plenty of examples. You have not. If you check back through your posts you will find that the only example of "fuite en avant" that you have provided in that dictionary definition. The rest of your "examples" are you paraphrasing French usages, which you don't mention directly, in English.

If you have any further doubts about the sort of back up necessary please contact me by private message to discuss.


----------



## Gil

Mon choix:
"headlong flight" qu'Harrap's traduit pas «sauve-qui-peut»

Ça me semble rendre l'idée de peur, de panique, de fuite désorganisée... sans regarder en arrière où c'est peut-être mieux qu'en avant.


----------



## Amityville

Hello people, I'm lagging behind.
Thankyou LV for your recognition - I know who you are too. It doesn't matter, JMC, I'm not Shakespeare. Isotta's the one with the bow and arrow and I live in a little dark house. 
My 'collision course with the future' was based only on Brillo's scenario and Aupick's explanation as I had never heard the expression before. '...with disaster' may be more appropriate.
I had a look for more examples but most of them were headlines suggesting it's the catchphrase of the moment, viz.
Couvre-feu : la fuite en avant
La fuite en avant de Bush
La fuite en avant de la micro-informatique
la fuite en avant des dépenses de santé
Nitrates, pesticides, cyanobactéries : refuser le fuite en avant.
L’élargissement de l’UE : une fuite en avant ? 
(There was this Freudian interpretation too - included anyway)
Cette transition du délai à la fuite en avant est tout d'abord le résultat de la libido croissante et de la tension accrue de l'anxiété correspondante) - so that's what's going on behind the scenes.  


Well I get the gist of it now and I agree with everything everyone has suggested. (just in this and the other thread, that is).


----------



## treetrotter

Thanks for all your suggestions; they've been very helpful. 

There doesn't seem to be a real equivalent in the English language. So, instead of :a headlong rush into an attack as the best form of defence - to the given situation- with the risk of jumping from the frying pan into the fire, I might just keep on borrowing from the French language.

O.K. with a little effort, I could stretch to:_The need to extricate oneself from a bad situation, but ones choice to accomplish this entails high risk and could well lead from a bad to an even worse place._ But, i'm sure you'll all agree it's a touch bit longer than _fuite en avant_.


----------



## Adam Warren

Unlike some of the contributors to this excellent discussion, I am convinced that "fuite en avant" does refer to the fact of escaping from something and running towards some unpalatable alternative (hence "fuite"). May I therefore contribute "impelled upon a doomed escape route"?


----------



## chubber

Collins/Robert Page 452 fuite en avant - headlong flight/rush

Chubber


----------



## frueaf

Hi guys, 

Very helpful discussion! I was just wondering how to render the sense of _la_ fuite en avant, ' *the *headlong rush' just doesn't seem to quite cut it in English. The context is a list, here is the sentence I'm trying to translate:

'Les valeurs francaises... se voyaient menacees par la demesure, la fuite en avant et la civilisation de masse des Yankees.''  (sorry about the missed accents I'm not sure how to insert symbol on this thing!)

I had a guess at by the excess, jumping ahead and mass civilisation of the Yankees. Do you think this gets the sense?


----------



## Stephoto

How about "to run into a burning building"?


----------



## margaritarichards

_fuite en avant_, in Spanish_: "huida hacia adelante". _I think a better metaphor than the one of the building in flames is the idea of a bridge falling, while you still choose to cross it. This better portrays the idea of direction: "en avant", towards the front. It attempts to represents the situation where someone has made a wrong decision or a mistake and instead of accepting it, they (proudly) persist in their mistake as if it were the only solution.


----------



## abeille7

I am very late ... but obviously the question remains to be answered.
In French, "_fuite en avant_" implies :
- to act voluntarily to avoid a situation that will be made worse precisely by the actions undertaken to avoid it,
- the actor is or should be aware that his/her attitude is illogical but he/she is doomed to act as such for any reason (public opinion, tradition, intellectual or cultural inability to imagine a better way to act ...).
Therefore, there is no notion of courage in "fuite en avant", only a deep lack of judgement, the inability to understand the primary causes of the situation that the actor pretends to cure.
Then ... in English, what about keeping "_fuite en avant_" ?


----------



## Keith Bradford

I'm just waiting for an opportunity to translate _fuite en avant_ but none of my clients seem to use it. I want to get the word _*lemming*_ in there...


----------



## abeille7

Thank for your continuing interest. About "lemming", as a senior biologist (professional) I can inform your that the "fuite en avant" of the lemmings is just a legend.
What about "a headlong flight on a slippery slope" ... is it too emphatic, wordy ?


----------



## Mintaka

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" might be an example of a _fuite en avant._


----------



## kenc515

Fuite en avant = I have been looking for a long time for an appropriate English translation.  A poker player could become engaged in a "Fuite en avant", who doubles up, and doubles up again, risking more and more, in the hope (typically vain, but not fatally so) of eventually winning back his losses.  A politician could become 'engaged in a fuite en avant'.. Nixon was typical of that, the problem started with the burglary at the Watergate, and then escalated as they went from one crime to an ultimately vain attempt to get ahead of the pursuing judicial system... but it failed.... Headlong rush does not convey the escalating stakes, neither do spiral, collision course, ... so I am still looking....


----------



## franc 91

La fuite en avant for me means going blindly forward, desperately trying to get out of the present mess for which there is no obvious way out or solution. Careering out of control, like a train which no longer has brakes. Deliberately talking about the future to avoid talking about the present. We must take this issue forward as the politicians say when they've just made an enormous mistake.


----------



## PPP

treetrotter said:


> PS in a previous thread quoted upstream in this thread, someone had suggested : 'attack as the best form of defense'. This seems to catch the meaning I had somehow accredited to the original French expression.


 

This is PERFECT for my case, thank you!  Just shows how many different ways this expression can be translated!  My case is talking about a country pursuing drug laws in a relentless pursuit (another suggestion above)-- and "attack as the best form of defense" is the most apt and elegant for the context. Thanks!


----------



## franc 91

Yes but the point about this expression is they aren't dealing with a problem in the present, in fact they're avoiding doing so by hoping something will come up in the future - they're chasing after some illusion over the horizon that might provide an answer.


----------



## PPP

Thank you.  But this makes sense, because they're relentlessly pursuing drug laws hoping to solve the "drug problem" in their country before it gets out of hand.


----------



## idfx

I believe this can be translated in various ways, depending on the context (not very deep, and not news, I know...). One that occured to me is "more of the same", which I believe can fit many situations, such as for instance the one PPP mentioned above. Faced with a failure, instead of backing off or changing tack, authorities advocate "more of the same" (failed remedies for instance).

Hope it helps others in the future.


----------



## franc 91

I still say it's  - chasing after an illusion


----------



## Enquiring Mind

As always, the specific context would be the deciding factor as, it seems, this phrase by itself can mean all things to all people.
One option that hasn't come up yet in this thread (unless I've missed something): *stampede*, but again, it's context, context, context!


----------



## Colorado_Suburbs

franc 91 said:


> La fuite en avant for me means going blindly forward, desperately trying to get out of the present mess for which there is no obvious way out or solution. Careering out of control, like a train which no longer has brakes. Deliberately talking about the future to avoid talking about the present. We must take this issue forward as the politicians say when they've just made an enormous mistake.


  Of all the posts, "blindly going forward" is the closest and best I have seen.  English simply does not have any decent equivalent for "fuite en avant".  Yes, most dictionaries propose "headlong flight", but no American English speaker knows what "headlong" means by itself.  "Headlong flight" seems like nothing specific, just an unthinking pell-mell running away, but IN FACT, "fuite en avant" has a very specific meaning, which I will try to give here, after having read it many times in French and having understood it perfectly in context.    Suppose there is a tornado - in Kansas, maybe - and you are in a big flat field.  You can see the tornado approaching, the width of the destruction is usually narrow, and you know that tornadoes follow a path that can be approximately discerned.  So you have a choice.  You can flee to one side or to the other, or you can flee in the same direction as the tornado is traveling.  The smart solution is to run to either side and avoid the narrow death zone.  Only a panicked fool would try to outrun the tornado by going in the same direction as the tornado, which would be "fuite en avant".  Now, serious threats often do not offer such a simple choice as "left, right or forward".  But in all these situations, "fuite en avant" is some action that is unthinking, does not avoid the danger, and as others have noted, "fuite en avant" often increases the danger.  In many situations there IS, in fact, a real solution - but it requires using one's brain.  My solution is to use "fuite en avant" without translation, but perhaps with a short note that it means "flight in front."  The phrase will enrich the English language and anglophone thinking, as well as suggesting that the French language harbors some concepts that Anglo-Saxons simply lack.


----------

