I think the English term is 'grease balls'.
I've seen it in a Hoover twin-tub, where the dirt formed small floating spheres of greasy, dust-laden bubbles. There wasn't enough detergent in solution, the water was too cool, and the items were also too dusty in the first place.
I've also seen washing machine manufacturers refer to it in the user instructions.
Also, modern machines have in some cases, been hobbled by very low water levels - especially where they don't have a high water level option. Any dirt including grease, lint and so on, simply gets floated above the low water level's maximum mark. And stays there. My Panasonic front loader is like this. Lint is problematic. It doesn't have a tub cleaning programme.
Some machines might have a decently hot 'tub cleaning' programme. Others simply splash around at 40°C. Too cold and does nothing. My first Panasonic was like that.
Machines which do 'spin washing' should largely be self cleaning.
With my machine, I have to put it on the 90°C Cottons programme, with 'Dr Beckmann's Power Descaler' - which is malic acid crystals.
When temperature is reached, I switch off and restart again. The machine does the initial 'distribution speed' mixing procedure again - but now with the scalding water in the tub. I usually repeat this several times, then I add a few more litres of water via the dispenser drawer and let it get back up to 90°C.
The water level has a few 'sweet spots'... maximum agitation is when the water level is below the inner drum lip; water levels above that switch to reduced agitation. Raising the water level higher still usually activates the 'suds reduction sequence', or overfill detection drainage.
I managed a couple of times, to add a few extra litres whilst it was reheating back up to 90 degrees. Normally it would try to add cold water to cool down before draining. It reheated a bit then went into pumping scalding solution straight down the drain with no cooling.
To rinse the tub, I repeat the normal Cottons programme from the start with cold water, adding a few jugs of water and restarting several times, getting the machine to do the distribution churning each time, then I manually progress it to static drain.
The above carry-on works for me - just - but would completely piss off a hell of a lot of folk, who simply don't have time for farting about.