Is it true that Frenchmen can drink the water in France, but Americans (and others?) visiting France cannot?
My French teacher in high school told us that. But it is hard to believe.
What biological effect could account for such a thing? Are French people inoculated against its effects in some way? What about French babies? Do they go thru an initiation process with the dirty water?
:):):)
That sounds like the old thing about ‘just don’t drink the water’ told to people travelling abroad.
I have well water and have been drinking it for a couple decades. It’s great water for the area. Some people tell me they feel ill drinking it. I offer bottle water to guests. I guess we’re immune to it’s germiness. I’ve never been sick from it.
EU drinking water standards are tough - in most respects tougher than US standards - and enforcement is systematic. If you can drink the water in the US, then you can certainly drink it in France.
Where exactly in France is this super-contaminated water supposed to be? I haven’t heard of people being decimated by bottles of Évian.
It’s theoretically possible your friend found some untreated water somewhere, but it’s not for drinking and definitely didn’t come out of the tap in his or her hotel room in Paris.
Condé Nast says the tapwater in France is safe to drink. Of course, drinking out of decorative fountains is a bad idea, and drinking tapwater will get you weird looks from the waitstaff if France is anything like Germany and Austria, but parasitic diseases apparently aren’t a big concern in the Metropole.
TripSavvy says the same as does Expatica but I have no idea how reliable they are.
What about Frenchwomen? Can they drink the water in France?
Eg Paris water. The untreated river and canal water goes to water the grass, clean the pavement, flush the drains, etc, not to drink.
Meanwhile, the tap water is highly monitored and conforms to rigorous parameters.
In other words, don’t drink from a garden hose in France. But wouldn’t that rule apply to Frenchpersons as well?
When I was a child (70s), I was under strict instructions from my parents not to drink the tap water when on holiday in France and Spain, for fear of stomach upsets.
Whether they were being over cautious at the time, I couldn’t say (I also was banned from stroking any cats or dogs, for fear of contacting rabies), but the tap water throughout Europe is totally fine to drink. High standards, we can thank the EU for that.
It’s not; many French restaurants in fact offer “tap?” if you ask for flat water. Even low-end restaurants which offer it from a refrigerated fountain often do so from the pipes and not from a big bottle. Apparently the bottled water lobby isn’t as strong in France as in several other European countries.
Yeah.
My brother the survivalist recently wanted to come up with some sort of DIY kit so he could set up a rainwater deposit and make sure it was drinkable (location: mountains in southern Saragossa province, Spain). I sent him to the local water authority: they have the skills to run those tests, the mandate to do so, and they’re also the people who’d fine his ass flat if his homemade setup managed to send himself or anybody in his house to the hospital. If he just wanted the deposit for watering and showering they’d just need to stamp the building permit and inspect the finished work once.
I went to France back in the early 1980’s, traveling from Belgium (it was cheaper to fly to there than Paris) all the way down to Clermont-Ferrand and back to Brussels. I had no problems drinking the water anywhere along the way.
I’d be really shocked if the water has somehow deteriorated since then.
I realized OOT that the “it’s not” was unclear: it refers to the response from waiters when asking for tap water. In France it’s perfectly normal.
Not sure about France, and maybe Nava can confirm this, but at least in the Canary Islands we have been advised not to drink tap water.
The reason is not because of bacterial contaminants, but rather that it is desalinated seawater. While safe to drink, it would taste off to our palates as there is still some residual salt present. Local residents certainly drink it as they are used to the taste.
But as you say, that’s for specific locations such as the Canary and Balearic Islands, where people need to look at photographs to see a river and water is desalinated; and, also as you mention, it actually meets drinking-water standards. France happens to have either inside it or on its borders several of the largest rivers in Europe.
Maybe his French teacher was from Corsica? :dubious:
Yeah, but you would NOT want to drink the Seine without some serious water treatment!
On the other hand, France does have modern water treatment, sanitation, and also some very nice springs that provide water as well.
Yeah, but it’s not going to taste salty and by the time it gets out of the tap it’s already had that water treatment. The problem with desalinated tapwater is not that it’s unhealthy, but that people are used to the taste of water from calcareous or clay areas.
I have drunk tap water all over France, and have lived to tell about it.
I’ve drunk water from the tap in Paris and Chamonix and also other places in the EU. Never a problem.
For example: Actual water quality report from SW Paris, updated monthly. Note the lack of detectable levels of harmful bacteria. So it’s not exactly Russian roulette drinking it. I don’t see that the corresponding New York report is published more than once per year, for comparison.