If you’re not sure about something, or don’t want to commit yourself to something, you’re said to be sitting on the fence.
In French you’re said to be ménager la chèvre et le chou (“to look after the goat and the cabbage”). Another translation of this phrase, according to Wiktionary, is to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Has anyone heard this expression?
Are there other ways to refer to fence-sitting?
A related word is: chèvrechoutisme (“goat-cabbage-ism”), which is apparently an expression used in Belgium to mean “A policy of attempting to please everybody or reconcile conflicting options.” [source]. A person who persues such a policy is known as a chèvrechoutiste (“goat-cabbage-ist”) [source].
The word ménager means to handle carefully, to treat considerately, to use sparingly, to take care of, to look after, to arrange, to put in or to make. The reflexive version of the verb, se ménager, means “not to push oneself too hard”. As an adjective ménager means household, domestic, housewife or canteen, and ménage means housework or (married) couple, as in ménage à trois [source]
This reminds me of the French verb “aménager” which is I find one of trickiest verbs to translate:
it’s used when something is arranged or landscaped or set up or put in place. Possibly “tarted up” might be another translation. No real simple equivalent in English.