karcherise

In fact these two words have an infinitely harsher and more insulting flavour in French. "Karcher" is the well-known brand name of a system
of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt -–
like pigeon-sh*t -– even at the risk of damaging what’s underneath. To apply this term to young human beings and proffer it as a strategy is
a verbally fascist insult and, as a policy proposed by an interior minister, is about as close as one can get to hollering "ethnic cleansing"
without actually saying so. It implies raw police power and force used very aggressively, with little regard for human rights. I wonder how
many Anglo-American correspondents get the inflammatory, terribly vicious flavour of the word in French? The translation of "karcherise"
by "clean" just misses completely the inflammatory violence of what Sarko was really saying. And "racaille" is infinitely more pejorative
than "scum" to French-speakers -- it has the flavour of characterising an entire group of people as sub-human, inherently evil, criminal
and worthless, and is, in other words, one of the most serious insults one could launch at the rebellious ghetto youth.