L’original en français followed by a version in English y una versión en español. There is also a Notes section in English and Russian.

It may help readers to know that foreigners in Paris, myself included, may be struck that Parisians, or French people more generally, do not when walking keep consistently to the right or left when passing other people. So, you might say, how we pass one another here in the French capital is ever a matter of negotiation.  (Il peut être utile aux lecteurs de savoir que les étrangers à Paris, moi y compris, peuvent être frappés par le fait que les Parisiens, ou plus généralement les Français, ne se tiennent pas systématiquement à droite ou à gauche lorsqu’ils marchent dans la rue. On pourrait donc dire que la façon dont nous nous croisons dans la capitale française est toujours une question de négociation.)

Français

Mon grand poème des élections françaises

A gauche, à droite ou tout droit aux cheminées :

Les Français ne savent guère par où y aller,

Ils errent dans la rue et arrivent à disputer.

Tu parles des élections, j’essaie de promener.

English

My most important French elections poem

Left, right or straight up the chimney:

The French don’t know which way to go,

They wander the streets and argue away.

You’re talking about elections, I’m strolling today.

Español

Mi gran poema de las elecciones francesas

Izquierda, derecha o por la chimenea:

Los franceses apenas saben qué camino tomar.

Vagando por las calles, descubren que discrepan.

Hablas de las elecciones, intento caminar.

Notes

Confronted with the first draft of my poem, my wife was reminded of Bulat Okudzhava‘s song about the Moscow metro (around 1960). Herewith the original Russian lyrics and a translation by William J. Comer. (A noter : it’s on the long escalators into and out of the Moscow metro that people are to stand to the right and pass on the left, and, in fact, this system prevails as well in the Paris métro!)

Песенка о московском метро
Мне в моем метро никогда не тесно,
потому что с детства оно, как песня,
где вместо припева, вместо припева:
— Стойте справа! Проходите слева!

Порядок вечен, порядок свят.
Те, что справа, стоят, стоят.
Но те, что идут, всегда должны
держаться левой стороны.

Song about the Moscow Metro
I never feel cramped in my metro,
Because since childhood it goes on like a song
Where, in place of a chorus, one hears:
«Stand to the right; pass on the left.»

Order is eternal; order is holy:
Those who stand on the right — stay there;
Those, who are on the move,
Always have to bear to the left.

My wife’s recollection reminded me in turn of Flanders and Swann’s 1957 Misalliance, about the romance of a honeysuckle (which climbs in a clockwise spiral) and a bindweed (anti-clockwise).

A bee who was passing remarked to them then
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be
They’ll never receive any blessing from me!
Poor little sucker, how will it learn
When it is climbing, which way to turn?
Right, left, what a disgrace
Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face . . .

Together, they found them, the very next day
They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight
To veer to the left or to veer to the right!

— Poem(s) and artwork by William Eaton.