I was somewhat surprised by the rudeness in Paris, and the body odor, when I was there 25 years ago. Not general rudeness but a few instances of very rude people - like the person in the train station information booth who wouldn’t even respond to non-French questions.
I imagine the same thing happens in any major tourist city. When I’m on the mall in DC I start losing my patients with people trying to ask me questions in their various languages. I’m not your tour guide and I shouldn’t have to speak all of the languages of the world to save you from learning my language. Then I calm down and try to be polite.
Rudeness is going to happen anywhere there are a lot of tourists rubbing up against people trying to go about their business - I think the French are just better at it that the rest of the world.
I found the French (in Caen and Marseilles) to be very nice. Once in Caen, a lady guided me to a restaurant-she was very kind (and accepted my highschool french without comment).
In Paris, I found people on the street to be quite nice…especially at the Les Halles market. The cab drivers were polite and friendly (much more so than in Boston).
My niece went to Paris and reported no problems, even when she tried communicating in her crappy basic French. Of course, she’s a beautiful, engaging young head-turner, I suppose that helps…David Sedaris said in one of his books he and his partner moved to the French countryside and their attitude to them was, “for goodness sake, what on earth made you move here???”
I live in France (but am American) and work in Paris. Parisians on the whole are not rude (minus some individuals), you just have to learn the local social rules.
In the US, friendliness is being polite. Here, formality is being polite.
You’ll do fine if you follow these rules:
Before you say ask anyone anything, say “Bonjour, Madame or Monsieur or Mademoiselle” and wait for a similar reply.
Preface that you don’t speak French by saying, “Excusez moi, je ne parle pas français” and wait to see how people respond. Usually they will switch to English. If they don’t, it’s because they are not comfortable with their English level.
Do not ask people personal questions including questions about their jobs, their families or what they do for a living.
Don’t take it personally if people don’t want to talk to you. I’m an English teacher and people are really self-conscious about their language skills. It’s kind of like if tourists asked you to speak French in the US. Try to laugh it off and have a good humor while being polite.
Say “merci et au revoir” to the workers when leaving a business/hotel/restaurant, etc.
I haven’t had any problem with the French being rude, but then, I’m from Northern Spain; my expectations are similar to theirs; the way I address a stranger is similar to theirs.
I’ve been to France several times over the past few years, and like most others in this thread, I didn’t find them to be particulalry rude - with the exception of the genuine assholes who work the booths at French rail stations and roll their eyes and snap at hapless travellers. Good luck changing trains the first time in the Gare du Nord (Paris’ main station) without a guide of some sort. What I don’t understand is why people who evidently really dislike talking to foreigners would get a job there. Must be great benefits or something…
That was exactly my experience; I’ve been to France 4 times, and the only rude person I have ever encountered was the guy at the information desk at the Gare d’Austerlitz. You know, the one whose job it is to be helpful. (And I was speaking French and everything! Not 100% fluent French, but nobody else I talked to had a hard time understanding me.)
I spent a week in Marseille and in transit through Lyon and the Franche-Comté last year, and I didn’t notice that people were ruder there than anywhere else. Nor have I noticed this among the (increasingly large) number of people from France who live in Quebec.
I did have a funny situation about ten years ago when I was buying a train ticket at the Gare St. Lazare. I spoke to the agent entirely in (badly accented) French; she spoke to me entirely in (bady accented) English.
Any set of tapes from the library will do, really. Knowing how to say “good morning” and “bathroom?” is useful no matter where you go.
I don’t speak any French, but I’ve had great vacations in France. But if you want super-friendly locals who all (seriously, even the guys selling french fries from carts on the street) speak English, go to Belgium.
For me it’s not limited to the French, I saw the same rudeness in Germany and Italy. But I would attribute it to people working in service jobs in tourist areas. And I can wholly sympathize, it must be a pain to be inundated with tourists all day every day 24/7/365.
SaxFace nailed it exactly. French often think Americans are rude, and vice versa, because of subtle and not so subtle differences in what is considered polite. Formal vs informal is one example, the definition of what is considered to be “private” information is another. Rules on customer service are different too.
Read Sixty Million Frenchmen can’t be wrong. You won’t have to learn a word of French to read it, and it will make you much respected and appreciated on your trip, and earn you better customer service and goodwill.
I had a similar situation. I was in high school at the time and as our group was coming in to France a group of French schoolgirls was leaving France. We were standing around in the same area waiting to go our respective ways. One of the schoolgirls approached me and asked “English?” and I said “American.” Then she pointed to herself and said “French.” This was my first opportunity to speak French to a real French person so I tried to carry on a complete conversation in French. She of course wanted to practice her English on me, so I ended up speaking French and she spoke English through the entire conversation. It was pretty comical but we did manage to have about a 10 or 15 minute conversation while we were both waiting around.
We talked about where we were from and where we were going. I hadn’t heard of the city where she was from but she was able to explain where it was roughly, just as I was able to roughly explain where I was from to her. We ended up having a nice conversation, but I’m sure anyone listening to it would have thought it was downright silly.
I agree with nearly everyone above- if you try to be polite to them (i.e. start in French, excuse yourself before speaking, know general concepts [numbers < 10, bread, water, cheese], and dress casually- not like an American tourist. They will go out of their way to be polite and helpful.
I had the experience of being in a bakery and the ‘loud middle aged American man wearing shorts and woman wearing a gaudy sweatshirt’ ordered two croissants and coffee in English and their bill came to 14 Euro. I stepped up and ordered, in my best attempted French, a baguette, 4 croissants, a couple of other pastries and 2 coffees and my total came to 9 Euro. When they asked the salesclerk, “Do you speak English?”, she shook her head no. So it surprised me when she told me my total and wished me a good day in perfect English.
The couple hadn’t left the store yet, but I doubt they understood the interaction in the slightest.
They don’t respect you if you don’t respect them.
I went to Paris last year to do my thesis research. I should say that before beginning the France-bashing that I absolutely loved the city and would love to go live there for a year.
One thing I noticed was the general attitude was that I didn’t speak French. I’m certainly not fluent but I think I can speak well enough. I mean, I explained to librarians what my thesis was on and stuff like that, it wasn’t just “Où sont les toilettes?” but as nice as people were, I felt like they kind of pitied me for not speaking French. One woman raised her eyes to heaven and said “Ne parle pas français” when I just didn’t hear something she said. Hello, I’m right here, understanding every word of that.
On the other hand, when I was in Germany the year before, with much worse German than French, I felt that people thought I didn’t speak German well, but they never came out and said that I didn’t speak it at all.
I’m sensitive about my French because I’ve worked on it for years and studying French history is what I do, so being told that a weird accent and slightly halting speech is “not speaking French” was a bit hurtful.
In general, however, my dealings with most people were quite pleasant. On a professional level, all the reference people I worked with were very polite and helpful.
The one thing to remember is that Paris is the “New York” of France. You don’t expect people in New York to be as nice to you as the people in a small town. When I went to New York, I remember trying to ask people where the nearest subway station was - the first five people just walked right past me without hearing me. Then I gave up and pulled out my map and figured it out.
I speak French but I learned my French in a rural part of Switzerland so in Paris I sounded like a hick. No one made particularly fun of me.
A funny thing happened to me on my first visit to Paris. A guy approached me and started saying something in French. I quickly said “Je ne parle pas Français bien” (I don’t speak French well). Then he continued talking in French, and I repeated that I didn’t understand. I started to turn away, and he was clearly getting agitated. Finally something occurred to me, and I asked, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” (Do you speak English?). It turned out, we were both American tourists, neither speaking much French, neither understanding what the other was saying, and each assuming the other was a rude Parisian.
Like many others in this thread, I visited the “other Paris,” where everyone was friendly and I had a wonderful time. However, I went in the off-season and, for the first week, traveled with friends who were fluent in French (Vietnamese), and spent the next several days by myself, but knowing the basics SaxFace listed. The people we met seemed to go out of their way to be helpful to us.
If you greet people, smile and can say “excuse me,” “please” and “thank you,” you can get a long way; I think this is probably true of most people in most countries.
