A basket of crabs.
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English Meaning: A group whose members are willing to harm each other to prevent one another from achieving goals. (A fiercely competitive environment.)
English Equivalents: A bucket of crabs. A nest of vipers. A rat race. A dog-eat-dog world. A cutthroat environment.
French Meaning: Un groupe dont les membres se haïssent, conspirent les uns contre les autres.
French Equivalents: Un nid de vipères. Un nœud de vipères.
Have you ever been pinched by a crab’s claw? I haven’t. But my mom has, and it was NOT pretty.
Setting aside the fact that we then boiled that sucker and ate him, it is my 100% objective view that those critters can be vicious. And when a handful of them are trying to get out of a container, you’d better believe they’re crawling over each other in a violent struggle for crustacean freedom. (It’s also really creepy when they escape and scuttle around your house, setting off a chain reaction of screaming humans and barking dogs. But I digress.)
In the figurative sense, the idea of viciousness still applies. Like its English translation, un panier de crabes refers to a similarly cutthroat-competitive environment where, for example, people are vying for something and are willing to claw at each other to get to it. To succeed at any cost—except, very often, no one succeeds as a result.**
For some people, this “basket” is school or the workplace. For the media, it might be le monde politique. This phrase is often used to characterize a group of politicians stooping to new lows to further their own agendas, while totally failing to work together to move the country forward. It can also be used to describe a dysfunctional sports team plagued by infighting.
Beyond these occasions, this phrase is fine to use in most contexts; it’s neither familier nor vulgaire. Obviously, you may not want to trash the basket of crabs when they’re à portée de voix (within earshot), but otherwise, this one is safe to use.
**It’s said that a single crab in a bucket can escape, but multiple crabs will prevent each others’ efforts to the point that none make it out. Zero gains. For francophone learners of English, this colossal failure for crab-kind is an example of a “zero-sum” situation.
French Context: Quand j’ai commencé mon nouveau boulot, je ne me suis pas rendue compte que j’entrais dans un véritable panier de crabes.
Translation: When I started my new job, I didn’t realize I was walking into a real dog-eat-dog world.
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