While it appears on the surface that there's not much difference in definition, the caller went on, "rabble" is a term oft used in French history, mainly in regards to the Revolution masses who rose against the royalty.
The French word under debate may not be as perjorative as the "scum" translation which sounds very bad to American/English ears.
I'm not a speaker of French, so I'll leave it to the language experts to step in.
Plus, I don't rely on the MSM which will put the worst construction on ANYTHING, including translations.
Leni
You're absolutely right!
I just looked in my old McLaughlin's French dictionary, the translation for "racaille" is "rabble" or "trash".
Leave it to the media to fan the flames. All in the interest of a good story, of course.
The point is, that in English language newspapers and media the word "scum" was reportedly used by Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (who's Sarko?) and not just one source - like AP.
An aside: not that it matters, but the word "scum" translates to écume and "rabble" is cohue (according to Google and Alta Vista). So mixing or confusing those two, I would think, would be pretty hard.
BTW if you want, you can get a Free Lexis Nexis Ala Carte account. I did over the weekend, that's where I found the news sources. It's a great reference tool.