maidenly delicacy
Explanation:
Mélenchon wasn't describing Fillon and Le Pen with this phrase. Nor was he exactly accusing the the presenters of being insufficiently critical. He was ironically praising them, and of course implicitly mocking them, for not naming Fillon and Le Pen as the candidates involved in corruption scandals:
"J'ai admiré vos pudeurs de gazelle quand vous dîtes que la campagne a été polluée par les affaires de 'certains d'entre vous'. Pardon, pas moi. Je tiens à le préciser. Ici, il n'y a que deux personnes qui sont concernées : monsieur Fillon et madame Le Pen."
You can hear him say it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QywSihxUD34
So the translation "modesty of a gazelle", which has appeared in the English-language media, is quite wrong. "Pudeur" doesn't mean modesty here. Nor, in my opinion, does it mean timidity, though it's close to that. I don't think the quotation quite works if you use "timidity", since "pudeur" must be an ostensibly admirable quality. It really means discretion, and you could translate it like that. However, discretion doesn't really fit the gazelle reference. Gazelles are not exactly discreet, though they are timid. But they are also delicate, and I think the word "delicacy" would be ideal here; it would have been indelicate to name the allegedly corrupt candidates to their faces.
So what about "gazelle"? Does it just mean the animal, used as a metaphor, or is he also invoking the slang meaning of gazelle as a girl, as polyglot suggests? Coming from Mélenchon, I think the slang meaning probably is intended, and I think that's part of what people found funny about it. He represents "la France insoumise"; he is pretty irreverent. But then again, as Phil says, the gazelle could be taken as suggesting inherently feminine qualities.
So we could, and perhaps should, use "gazelle-like". But it does seem a bit forced to me in English. I'd be inclined to go for a freer rendering, albeit at the expense of losing the distinctiveness of the metaphor, and use "maidenly", on the assumption that that is the underlying suggestion. It is possibly significant that the female presenter, Anne-Claire Coudray, interrupted him at this point to defend herself; she seems to have though he was referring to her.
By the way, here's another example, presumably inspired by Mélenchon's joke, in a different context; it shows that the point is not naming names:
"À mesure que les révélations concernant le terroriste sortent dans la presse se fait jour un profil assez classique : un homme « né au Royaume-Uni », défavorablement connu du MI5 qui avait déjà diligenté une enquête, et lié à « l’extrémisme violent ». Scotland Yard a des pudeurs de gazelles… Pas besoin de vous faire un dessin, vous êtes assez grands pour imaginer quel genre d’individu peut être cet homme répondant au nom de Khalid Masood"
http://www.thomasjoly.fr/2017/03/de-clichy-a-londres-le-janu...
| Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 11:23
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
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peer agreement (net): +1
