Banking supervision

L’intervention précoce is the power a supervisor has to step in before a bank has actually failed, and the adjective inside it is the most reliable false friend on this page. Précoce is the plain French word for early, and it carries no opinion at all: un printemps précoce is an early spring, un dépistage précoce is early detection, une variété précoce is a crop that ripens ahead of the rest. It sits in a statute without raising an eyebrow. « Precocious », which an English reader will hear behind it, has narrowed to almost one use: it is said of a child who is ahead of their years, and even there it is faintly disapproving, the word of somebody who was not charmed. It is never said of a spring, a harvest or a supervisory measure. French does use un enfant précoce, and even there the word stays flat — it is what the school system writes, beside la précocité intellectuelle, where English prefers « gifted » and keeps « precocious » for the raised eyebrow. So l’intervention précoce is early intervention, and nothing further is being said.