Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

état de services

English translation:

contributions to the cause / record of services

Added to glossary by Una D.
Dec 6, 2018 21:01
5 yrs ago
24 viewers *
French term

état de services

French to English Other Government / Politics militancy
Context: An academic text on the political situation in Ivory Coast.

This first sentence follows a paragraph about the "wartime achievements" (both successful actions and martyrdoms) of certain militants (not professional soldiers) during periods of civil conflict.
"Cet état de services, dont plusieurs aspirent au statut de hauts faits de guerre, oblige. Il témoigne également d’un sens de la discipline de parti..."

The second appearance of the term is in the context of "debt" owed to loyal supporters:
"l’action militante applique une inflexion et même une inversion du vecteur de la dette politique et l’État se retrouve comme débiteur. Autour de l’enjeu de la conquête du pouvoir, par leur état de service, les militants accumulent des états de services. Ils se mobilisent et vont au charbon
pour la victoire de celui qui incarne les valeurs auxquelles ils croient."

The definitions I seem to find in French for this term (e.g. "liste des emplois et activités de quelqu'un au cours de sa carrière.") don't quite fit in my context, especially in this second sentence which is rather unclear to me and in which the term appears twice. I'm not even sure if it should be translated with the same English term each time.


Thanks in advance for your help!

Proposed translations

1 day 8 hrs
French term (edited): états de services
Selected

contributions to the revolutionary [liberation? ...] struggle

would fit in this ST, as the use of "états de services" is ideologically charged - these are not soldiers in some regular army, spending most of their time doing basically nothing, "motivated" by compulsory recruitment or being professionals, these are militants.

the plain bureaucratic version ("service records") is in fact only half-correct - there was probably no one keeping any "records" while the struggle was ongoing...
Something went wrong...
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks (hvala!), I altered it a bit, but I felt 'contributions to the cause' fit in well in my contexts."
6 mins

"Service status"

I would put it in inverted commas as a translated title. It strikes me as being akin to the the status of the "old soldier" who fought for the cause, counting as a positive badge of honour in the eyes of the new regime.
Peer comment(s):

disagree Daryo : "status" is about how something is at a given point in time while "états de service" is about historical records of all that happened during a time period when these "militants" were engaged in the fighting / liberation struggle/ whatever ..
19 hrs
agree philgoddard
23 hrs
Something went wrong...
+4
12 mins

service record

The Collins-Robert dictionary translates "états de service" (in the plural) as "service record".
Peer comment(s):

agree B D Finch : As they weren't formally soldiers, perhaps it should, at least in some instances, be "record of service".
17 mins
agree katsy
15 hrs
agree Victoria Britten
17 hrs
agree Daryo
18 hrs
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