# fuite en avant



## brillo26

Comment traduire "fuite en avant" en anglais.

Writing to a friend I was explaining to him that  I was about to  radically  change my  life (location ,fresh start,etc.) but  with doubts regarding these decisions as if uncounsciously I was going to do/repeat  something which I knew was not necessarily the right thing hence 'fuite en avant'.

Hope this is not too convoluted!
Brillo26


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## Isotta

I don't know if we have this expression in English; I have heard others bemoan their inability to find an equivalent. The only thing I could find was "backward-forward thinking," but that doesn't make much sense. I have even on rare occasion heard Anglophones say "fuite en avant" in English, but only in academic settings or among people who are avid readers of _The New Yorker_.

Sorry. Maybe someone else will have something.

Z.


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## Jean-Michel Carrère

FUITE EN AVANT :

Mécanisme inconscient qui pousse à se jeter dans le danger qu'on redoute (ATILF dictionary).

Something like "out of the fire into the frying-pan" ?


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## Amityville

Oh. J'avais lu l'explication de brillo qui ne fait pas mention de la direction de sa fuite et j'ai décidé que l'expression doit vouloir dire 'getting cold feet' ou 'bottling out' c'est à dire se décourager et reculer.
Mais si le dictionnaire est correcte elle veut dire en plus une réaction de panique et une fuite de mal en pire...donc JMC a raison.


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## Aupick

The image that comes to my mind is a car heading towards a cliff without enough time to stop: you may as well step on the accelerator. (Any one remember Thelma and Louise?) If this is at all what the expression suggests, would 'accelerating into a road block' work? (Or have I just got Hollywood on the brain?) Otherwise how about 'attack as the best form of defence'?


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## Amityville

On a collision course with the future ?


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## tinsel

Je viens de lire cette phrase dans un article sur la-Croix.com
Je ne la comprends pas...
J'ai lu vos idees, donc je veux juste vous demander:
peut-on utiliser 'fuite en avant' pour exprimer...
moving from worse to worse.
...je ne sais pas...
peut on-dire...
certains soutiennent que la laicite est une fuite en avant.

Merci d'avance pour toutes vos idees, je veux savoir comment peut-on utiliser cette phrase?
XXX


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## GerrardsCrosser

I suggest "retreat forwards". - There are some instances of this in English, though not many. But it does capture well the "going backwards" implication of "fuite", and the paradoxical air of doing this "forwards".

"GerrardsCrosser"


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## Matthieu88

I wonder if "to throw caution to the wind" is in some way encompassed by "fuite en avant".  it's a french expression that still do not fully understand.


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## berrac

le cas typique de la fuite en avant, c'est le mythomane qui se sort d'un mensonge par un nouveau mensonge...


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## dunescratcheur

> _Writing to a friend I was explaining to him that *I was about to radically change my life (location ,fresh start,etc.)* but with doubts regarding these decisions as if uncounsciously I was going to do/repeat something which I knew was not necessarily the right thing hence 'fuite en avant'._


.....I'm about to escape to the future


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## ninahagen9

berrac, agreed that that is the best definition of its original use in psychiatry. The expression has, however, now entered common use, just like the noun "quantum" has left the realm of physics to make the quantum leap from being an unpredictable and unmeasurable motion to an adjective meaning huge!!!


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## trellis

I remember a phrase by the poet/singer Roy Harper "making things better by making them worse". It seems to capture the sense of "fuite en avant".


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## rodolgo

To give an example:

"I'm using a piece of software and it has many bugs; the software Support service proposes to sell me the next release instead of solving my current issues."

In French, the behavior of the Support could be called "*fuite en avant*". They escape the current situation by proposing a new situation in the hope that all problems would be solved by doing so.

Hope this is clear.

Rodolphe


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## BAlfson

I like "I was off, throwing caution to the wind."

Americans also express this less formally in several different ways.  "Damn the torpedoes - full-speed ahead!"  "What the hell - how bad can it get?"

rodolgo, isn't your example a bit different from the question of the original poster?  I think we all know that feeling though!

Cheers - Bob


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## rodolgo

Well, the original question was "Comment traduire "fuite en avant" en anglais." ie how to translate "fuite en avant" in English.

I haven't found any definitive answer to it in the thread, so I thought that shedding some light on how it was typically used could help...

My 2 cents.

Rodolphe


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## Gabbi

Reading all the different examples above I wonder if other English expressions can be used given the particular context e.g.:
- "stuck between a rock and a hard place" (lacks the dynamism of the source phrase)
- "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" (implies lack of fine touch)
- "grab the bull by the horns" (too positive as in "seize the day")
- "desperate measures in desperate times" (very general)
- "means of last resort" (could be close)
- "shot in the dark" (close your eyes and hope for the best...)

Any more suggestions perhaps from the military?


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## A-class-act

I've heard *Fuite en Avant.*
*Full-speed ahead* I found it good.


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## Gabbi

Most expressions come from special areas of activity and many English ones have their origins in seamanship and the navy e.g. "all hands on deck" and "welcome aboard". Is "Fuite en Avant" a nautical expression?


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## idfx

"Fuite en avant" means there is no turning back, the only way is forward  - with no implication of being necessarily doomed (as in the Thelma and  Louise example). 

I am looking for a satisfying translation into English myself, but that is the gist of the phrase. In fact I think "no turning back" is fine, a "no turning back policy" can do the trick in many cases, I believe.


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## Gabbi

Another would be "head first" e.g. to dive head first into the battle


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## Pierrus

"Fuite en avant" has no direct translation.
This phrase is usually used when someone seems to go forward but is in reality fleeing from a problematic situation.

This sentence could be seen as a mix between 

"Fuite" (from to flee, fuire)
and the expression 

"aller de l'avant" (to go forward)
An example would be someone going abroad for humanitarian reason (which should be a good thing), but in reality this person would be be fleeing from a difficult financial or family situation in his own country.
A more common example would be someone changing his job, not to have a better job, but to flee from his current one.

En espérant avoir aidé,

Bàt,

P


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## finaud

According to Collins Robert it is a headlong rush, forging ahead regardless,(into danger, the unknown)
course dans l'inconnu, même au risque de grosses erreurs,
eg, c'est une fuite en avant vers la guerrre(its a headlong rush into war.


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## corcovado

May I humbly suggest "path to self-destruction"? It seems the most idiomatically correct.


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## rrose17

I don't think so. Path to self-destruction sounds over the top and melodramatic. Full speed ahead (and damn the torpedoes) I think comes closest. We don't know what the future holds but we're going to go full speed ahead anyway.


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## Laurent2018

Cela évoque un trait d'humour assez connu:

"Hier j'étais au bord du gouffre,
Mais depuis, j'ai fait un grand pas en avant".

Fuite en avant:  créer involontairement de nouveaux problèmes en croyant résoudre les anciens, ou améliorer les choses (= en croyant "aller de l'avant").
Les interprétations vont dans tous les sens, y compris dans les dicos !


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## BrunoParis

There's a very interesting editorial in Le Monde this evening that made me think about the meaning of this expression, and how to translate it into English : 

L'inquiétante fuite en avant du Royaume-Uni

I've read most of this thread, and am still not sure how I would translate the term. It really seems to be the idea of forging ahead regardless, though that's not a very elegant way of translating it.


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## Wodwo

It's not entirely clear to me what is most important in this phrase. Is it the precipitousness, the foolhardiness, the throwing caution to the winds, or perhaps the aspect some have mentioned of not facing up to a situation, but trying to get out of it by doing the same as before only more so?

I guess the answer is probably all of these things. In the example of the UK, it sounds like maybe a "blind rush" would work? But I can't access the article, so hard to say.


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## bh7

forging ahead blindly


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## tartopom

As if you were running away from yourself, from sth in some dogged pursuit.


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## trans-latour

On peut essayer de décomposer la succession d'évènement qui conduisent à la fuite en avant. Il y a 5 étapes:
1) Un problème se pose
2) La ou les personne(s) sensée(s) le résoudre élabore(nt) une solution et la met(tent) en application
3) Le résultat n'est que très partiellement positif. Visiblement la solution proposée , sans être complètement mauvaise, ne permet pas une résolution satisfaisante du problème.
4) La sagesse voudrait que l'on reconnaisse son erreur, ce qui conduirait à réétudier le problème et à essayer de proposer une  manière de le résoudre différente de la précédente.
5) Au lieu de cela, il est décidé de continuer à mettre en œuvre la première solution souvent en l'amplifiant et en excluant tout retour en arrière.

En conséquence je proposerais la traduction suivante à faire vérifier par des anglicistes:
"Pratiquer la fuite en avant":
"To stubbornly hold to an ill-adapted measure "
voire même:
"To stubbornly hold with an increasing energy  to an ill-adapted measure "
ou peut-être:
"To stubbornly implement with an increasing determination  an inappropriate measure "


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## Wodwo

Thanks trans-latour. We have something similar in the idea of going on digging when you're in a hole - people do it but it's not a good idea. It appears in the phrase, "When you're in a hole stop digging" and variations.

As bh7 says, it looks as though in some cases "forging blindly ahead" or "ploughing blindly on" would work as a translation. But I am interested to know how much, if at all, the idea of doing something different from before to avoid having to face up to a situation, as suggested by Perrus at #25 above, features in people's understandings.

Oh and I think "making things better by making them worse" is probably a mis-quote from Kevin Ayers rather than Roy Harper, as suggested by trellis at #15 above, though I'm no expert on either so could be wrong.


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## Laurent2018

Fleeing a danger, he was heading for a wall.


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## dog 2 dog

When the context is resolutely negative (e.g., "la fuite en avant de M Poutine en Ukraine"), perhaps "recklessness" could be an option, depending on the sentence. I think there's an idea of a blatant disregard of the consequences ('suicidal' comes to mind). I'd also seen 'quixotic' but can remember the context. Definitely a tricky one to translate!


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## Wodwo

"ploughing on regardless" comes to mind. That's the idea of keeping on keeping on even when you really shouldn't (though in some situations it might still work). "Ploughing on" can be adapted to different situations by using a different adjective - "recklessly"/"unwisely"/"doggedly"/ "aggressively", and possibly even "calmly ploughing on".


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## rosace17

Not that this would necessarily work as a 1-to1 translation, but I can't help thinking of the line from the Sly & the Family Stone song: "running away to get away, you're wearing out your shoes."   Or, more prosaically, "Running away from your problems is a race you'll never win." So i thnk that "fuite en avant" could sometimes just be translated as "running away" (since after all, we tend to run forward, not back...) though I'll grant that it loses some of the charm of the orignial...


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