That’s just too freaking cool.
“Whatever.”
I don’t use “it’s going” as particularly negative – I’d use it interchangeably with “Hanging in there.” (Which, come to think of it, isn’t particularly enthusiastic, either.)
Anyway, to answer the OP – I’d say the current idiom that’s closest is “whatever.”
In a non-French context, what it means to me is “I’m being pretentious”—like Miss Piggy referring to herself as “moi.” 
That’s exactly the way I heard the phrase used as a child.
I’ve always used it in the “so-so” context.
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme
Gesundheit (German)
Literally, “Like this, like that” with the appropriate waver of the hand, meaning “So-so”.
Closest English equivalent is along the lines of “It’s been better, it’s been worse.”
So-so.
I don’t think I’d ever use the phrase to mean “whatever”, or at least not the way I hear “whatever” used most (slight disdain and/or disinterest in something).
“Same shit, different shovel.”
Why do we all recognize and use the “hand waver” signal?
When the hell did the “International Gesticulation Committee” (IGC) decide upon this, exactly?
Chose. It’s "Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing. Chose = thing.
Is the International Gesticulation Committee anything like the International Color Committee, that shadowy organization that arbitrarily decrees what next year’s hot fashion colours will be? And if it has that kind of power, can it sort out that whole Bulgarian “headshake = yes” situation?
[quote=“Sunspace, post:33, topic:548300”]
OP - It means so so to me.
Is the Bulgarian headshake the same as the Greek one? What about the Greek ‘no’ movement. I always thought the nodding and shaking for yes and no would have come from babies suckling - nod, and unlatching - shake. Why is it opposite for the Greeks?
Life goes on, brah! Lala, how the life goes on!
Alternatively, plus ça change, plus ça reste pareil. But I also wouldn’t really use that to mean comme-ci, comme-ça.
In Bulgarian, it’s gore-dolu (up-down).
C’est Dupont et Dupond
I haven’t been to Greece, and I wasn’t aware they do this as well. (I’ve seen it in Albania, though.) Bulgarians definitely do nod up-down for no and shake side-to-side for year, though. They also do a little head bobble (Indians do something similar) for, essentially, “okay, I find this acceptable”.
They know they’re doing it the opposite way of everyone else, and will switch it up for foreigners on occasion.
That’s mezzo mezzo. (Not to be confused with “Mezz Mezzrow”.)
The Italian phrase equivalent to the French one in question is così così, which is the same as French comme ci, only a little contracted. In Italian così means ‘so’ and also ‘like this’. In older forms of English, “so” simply had the meaning of ‘in this way’, ‘like this’. E.g., “Why do you weep so?”
If you phrase it as “like this, like that,” the meaning is more transparent than saying “so-so.” Implying a mixture of some good things and some bad things, with neither predominating.