French language Q&A Forum

Why does the final sentence, "Plutôt fuir que d'être pris la main dans le sac," utilize être in "d'être pris" vs avoir like in "d'avoir pris." ???

Hi, I have heard that the inversion is not used often, and rarely used among young people.  Maybe it is used more often with an older generation? Which of the 3 forms is the most used in everyday conversational French? And my second question is: What is the tone or feeling behind each form? (casual, friendly, condescending, written versus conversation, unnatural, etc).  Thank you in advance for your time and your answer!  :)

Just a few days ago I came across Jacques Brel's song "Le moribund", which has the line: "Adieu l'Antoine, je t'aimais pas bien", which I took to mean that the speaker didn't like Antoine. Is the rule that "aimer bien" can't be used in a negative sentence something that can be overridden in some cases, such as in art to make a line scan better, or does its use in the song suggest that the speaker isn't well spoken? Maybe an exception that tests the rule?

Quel age tu as?   is this right sentence?

Hello! This is an example given for a partitive article:

Tu veux des pommes de terre?
Do you want some potatoes?

My question: is “des” both a plural of the partitive articles (used with uncountable or mass nouns)  AND  a plural of the indefinite article (used with countable nouns)? In the example above, potatoes are countable so they would take the definite or indefinite articles. But the sentence is used as an example of the partitive.

It’s probably a stupid or obvious question but I’m confused!

Thank you!