Barely announced, the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen provoked a torrent of reactions on social networks. A divisive figure hated by part of the population, the far-right leader died at the age of 96 on Tuesday. An announcement which provoked both emotional reactions from his camp but also reactions of joy in the ranks of his opponents. Not surprising as the man had made enemies with homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic punchlines.
On Quickly, another, stranger trend appeared among those used: “Here we are”.
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On the social network owned by Elon Musk, many Internet users commented on the announcement of the death of JMLP with these few not really French words: “We are there”. What is it about? Quite simply an expression from the social network TikTok. Like the famous and annoying “quoicoubeh” before it, the expression was born in a very short video published on the Chinese network at the end of 2023. We see two men pronouncing this dialogue which has become very viral.
« – That’s it, we’re there. »
« – Quoi ? »
« – Here we are. »
And that’s it. The thing about this video is that it was often taken up by TikTok users, who took great pleasure in not slipping in the reference, as if to keep their secret. After some research, we were able to trace it back to “the source”. It is in fact the “Legimslo” account run by a Gabonese influencer.
An expression to say “finally”
The young man regularly and deliberately has fun using French in his videos. The famous “We are there”, a stripped-down version of “we are there”, has been viewed more than two million times, allowing its author to glean 60,000 subscribers on TikTok. Through repeated use, the expression has gradually established itself as a way of saying “finally”. This is why many Internet users used these words to comment on the death of one of the best-known French politicians. They are not the first, the expression being regularly used on the networks to describe something expected.
Our file on the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen
French is the official language of Gabon, where 80% of the population masters it (the highest percentage for an African country). But a third of the inhabitants also use Fang as their main language.
