Migration and society in French

Two thirds of the way down sits prendre ses marques, and it is worth stopping on, because the picture inside it is not the one an English speaker would have built. Nothing here is about roots, and nothing is about ground. Les marques are the marks an athlete puts down before a race: the tape at the start of a long jumper’s run-up, the exact spot the foot has to hit. Prendre ses marques is the work of finding those spots — pacing the run-up, counting the strides — and of finishing it before the gun. Carried into ordinary speech it means getting one’s bearings somewhere new: a job, a town, a country. Il lui a fallu un hiver pour prendre ses marques says that a winter went by before she stopped having to think about where anything was. English reaches for another part of the body and says « to find one’s feet », or flattens it to « to settle in ». Two things to carry over. The possessive travels with the subject: j’ai pris mes marques, prenez vos marques. And the starter’s « on your marks » is the same picture one step earlier, à vos marques.