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Il fallait arrêter d'enlever la rouille.

Il fallait arrêter d'enlever la rouille.
We had to stop removing the rust.
From Lesson 269:Verbs followed by de (de + infinitive)·French

Questions & Answers about Il fallait arrêter d'enlever la rouille.

Why is there a d' before enlever?
In French, many verbs require the preposition de before a following infinitive. Arrêter (to stop) is one of them. When you want to say "to stop doing something", you must use arrêter de followed by the infinitive. Here, de becomes d' because enlever starts with a vowel.
Why is Il fallait translated as "We had to" instead of "He had to"?
Il fallait is the imperfect tense of falloir (to be necessary). It is an impersonal verb, meaning the il always translates to "it", not "he" (literally: "It was necessary to..."). In English, we often translate this as "We had to" or "You had to" based on the context to make it sound more natural.
Could I use a different verb like cesser instead of arrêter here?
Yes! You could say Il fallait cesser d'enlever la rouille. Cesser de also means "to stop" or "to cease" doing something and follows the exact same rule of requiring de before the infinitive. Arrêter de is just a bit more common in everyday spoken French.
Why is it Il fallait (imperfect) and not Il a fallu (passé composé)?
The imperfect (Il fallait) is used here to describe an ongoing state or a general condition in the past ("At that time, we needed to stop"). If you used the passé composé (Il a fallu), it would sound more like a sudden, urgent need that popped up at a specific, isolated moment.

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