avant que ne + subjunctive

Sarah,  

There  are a number of factors here - 

1. As you probably know, there are only 2 tenses of the subjunctive mood in routine use in modern French - the present and the past subjunctive 

2. The present is the more commonly used tense of the subjunctive 

3. In the context of this example, the past subjunctive would generally only used to indicate that the event in the subordinate subjunctive clause preceded the event in the main clause, to fit with the requirements of ‘ concordance des temps ‘

When the event in the main clause is in passé compose you would use the past subjunctive for another event that occurred before that event. 

In the example you note however, the subordinate event following ‘ avant que ‘ occurs after the previously mentioned events in the sentence and the present subjunctive is needed.

The following link is very useful for understanding the ‘ concordance des temps ‘. 

Have a look at the sections on tense usage following passé composé 

a. for events happening simultaneously or afterwards - note the use of the present subjunctive in the example and 

b.  for events happening beforehand - note the use of past subjunctive in that example. 

 https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/glossary/verb-tense-usage/la-concordance-des-temps-sequence-of-tenses

Hi Maarten and Sarah, 

I'm still a bit confused here. 

Is the main clause 'il a fallu que'? If so, it is clearly in passé composé so Maarten said to use the past subjunctive. 

Bit if the main clause (for the subordinate clause 'avant que...') is 'elle reste...', then when did the 'rester' end? Did it end before the secour? It seems the rescue might be considered to have ended the period of the 'reste'. Therefore again we should use the past subjunctive. 

So as you see, I'm still confused.

Thanks

Michael

Sorry Michael, 

I didn’t mean to confuse, but it is a complex structure ! An impersonal expression, 3 subjects,  3 verbs, 2 subjunctive triggers, (optional) ne explétif, concordance des temps - grammatically complex sentence ! 

However I didn’t say ‘ passé composé ‘ in the main clause needs the past subjunctive, because it is not as simple as that.  The use of the subjunctive is limited by there being only one past and one present tense used, and governed also by the important rules of ‘ concordance des temps ‘.

Shorter version

‘ elle reste suspendue..’ is simultaneous with ‘ il a fallu que ‘ and therefore present subjunctive used. ( My bad - I didn’t cover the simultaneous situation above initially so I have edited it slightly )

Since these both happened beforehand “ il a fallu qu’elle reste ….. avant que les secours ( ne) réussissent “ the subjunctive verb in the ‘avant que’ clause cannot be in an anterior tense either - therefore present tense subjunctive used again.

Have a look at the table Aurélie created - it is very good.

Thank you Maarten K for the answer and the link