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This is from MC Solaar's RMI, a song about injustices done to the underprivileged:

Le monstre aux yeux verts, synonyme de la jalousie
Taxe l'eau du Sahel juste pour remplir son jacuzzi
Mais c'est comme ça que ça fonctionne...
...dans ce monde de taches ?

Dans ce monde de taches translates directly to "In this world of spots/smudges?"

I understand it's a rhetorical question meaning something like "in this terrible world?" or something. Do smudges (taches) refer to bad people?

2 Answers 2

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Tache is slang for a loser (a dud), not necessarily a bad or dishonest person but a derogatory term nonetheless. It's very modern slang, I have a 20th c. slang dictionary and it isn't in it.

I don't know for sure where it comes from. Most likely from the colloquial phrase faire tache which means "to stand out in a conspicuous or ridiculous way".

Un monde de taches → a world of losers.

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Indeed, "une tache" is primarily a spot, a smudge.

By extension, it is a slang word to designate metaphorically someone who "does not fit correctly" : incompetent, inept.

It is used in France since the 90's approximatively.

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