Emmanuella Apr 8:

@ Rob- J'en suis tout à fait consciente. Je me demande quel terme utiliserait Mme Christine Lagarde...

Brendan McNally (asker) Apr 8:

Thanks all for your responses.

I realise that it's possible to just translate the term and leave out the abbreviation, I was just wondering if there's an accepted, universal translation yet for this abbreviation, and it seems there isn't.

The fact that the Banque de France is using "ISE", even though it's probably just a direct translation from the French, is significant, especially as my target text is from a French government-owned company and refers specifically to other French companies.

Rob Grayson Apr 8:

@Emmanuella My hunch is that, with the exception of than SMEs, the terms used there by the BdF (MTEs, VSEs) are direct translations of French terms rather actual English terms that are generally used and accepted in the anglosphere. (In fact, if you do a Google search on "MTE, VSE, SME", the top two hits are both from the BdF website.)

Emmanuella Apr 8:

Interesting
https://www.banque-france.fr/en/statistics/access-bank-finan...

Rob Grayson Apr 8:

@philgoddard Your claim that "the French government's definition is not relevant for translation purposes" is, frankly, absurd.

When a French official (in this case a minister) talks about ETIs, he does not mean the same thing as a British official means when he talks about medium-sized businesses.

Séverine Watson Apr 8:

@phil I find it hard to believe that Rob's find here in the discussion would be irrelevant, and certainly not in this context.

I'll give it to you that we use small, medium and large when talking about business sizes in English-speaking circles.

However, going off the information we have here, we know it's a minister talking about these different company structures. That makes me think it is likely this document is specifically about France, where there is a need for a clear distinction between the French terms TPE, PME and ETI (and even GE – grande entreprise – if the text were to talk about it).

Emmanuella Apr 8:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entreprise_de_taille_intermédi...

philgoddard Apr 8:

Rob The French government's definition is not relevant for translation purposes. English uses small, medium, and large.

Rob Grayson Apr 8:

@philgoddard Incorrect: ETIs are much bigger than even the largest SMEs.

The EU definition of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) only goes up to revenue of €50m, whereas the French government's definition of ETIs goes from revenue of €43m up to €1.5bn.

(See https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/smes/sme-definiti... and https://www.insee.fr/fr/metadonnees/definition/c2034)

philgoddard Apr 8:

'Moyenne' and 'intermédiaire' both translate as 'medium-sized', so you can translate 'petites et moyennes entreprises (TPE et PME) et de taille intermédiaire (ETI) simply as 'small and medium-sized businesses/enterprises'. You don't need to include the abbreviations.