Does anyone know why, one morning,
This beast awoke
In the midst of Pantin
And has amazed everyone
Proclaiming everywhere, loud and clear:
We’ll drive the foreigners out.
Then this man-eating ogre,
Made clones of itself.
Their insidious tirades
Convinced the naive
Who following their xenophobic maxims say:
“We’ll rid ourselves of those microbes!“
Beware my friend, I have seen it.
Prepare yourself; the beast is back!
It is a hydra of slick speech
Which forges a new breed of oppressors.
Our freedoms are under its boot.
Do not open your door to it, my friend.
The belly from whence this monster was born
Is still fertile.
Bertold Brecht told us of it.
He knew the song.
That same one Hitler loved so much,
It is the waltz of the swastika!
So, for a few votes
Some remember Pétain;
It is those Jews, once again,
Whom these dangerous Aryans
Will brandish like scarecrows
In all their sinister propaganda.
Beware my friend, I have seen it.
Prepare yourself; the beast is back!
It is a hydra of slick speech
Which forges a new breed of oppressors.
Our freedoms are under its boot.
Do not open your door to it, my friend.
Stop listening, good people,
To this scourge of the human race,
The heart-wrenching bark
Of this beast of grief
Instilled by the siren songs
Of Xenophobia and hatred.
Leave it to soaps
To wash whiter than white.
Colors liven up
This diverse universe.
Refuse to join this vicious circle
Which promises the moon.
Beware my friend, I have seen it.
Prepare yourself; the beast is back!
It is a hydra of slick speech
From which one hundred thousand mouths spew misfortune.
Our freedoms are under its boot.
Do not open your door to it, my friend.
Because, you see, my little one, I’ve seen it,
The beast,
The beast is back.