Le Rant

This is my very first rant, and I promised myself to try to do it justice, rather than just rattle off a bunch of expletives. Here it goes…

First a bit of history, we (husband, daughter and I) are living in the southern ‘burbs of Paris. Previously, I’ve lived in USVI, Japan and the States. So, I am quite used to adjusting to new places, accepting local customs and people the way they are and not expecting them to change because I, the great and wonderful ANAHITA, suddenly set foot in their country. The rant you are about to read applies only to Paris and its environs, not all of France. I am certain that in countryside people are not this way…

Ok, I stay at home with my daughter, a wonderful, fun, smiley, happy toddler ALL DAY! We get bored at home and try to do activities outside, to get out and meet people. So far, we’ve not had much luck.

Example: today we went to the grocery store. She and I gliding up and down the aisles, past the icky French delicacies (tinned duck paste!). She was babbling away with her doll, very cutely, while I picked out items and added them to my basket. Here it comes, wait for it…
.BUMP Oops, clumsy ole me hit poor old lady’s (call her Bitchette, very accidentally. I, of course, apologize. My daughter smiles and gurgles to the lady, and not a crack of a smile from her. Not even a cursory, “Ok, I’ll smile because it’s probably the nice thing to do even though I am an utter bitch.” Nothing. I apologize again, hoping it’s over and she gives a “HRmph” and storms off. “No problem, I think, I’m getting used to this French standoffishness (and that’s putting it mildly).”….

…continue shopping, babyAna gurgling, being tickled by me, laughing (not loudly) and generally having a nice time. Now let’s just get over to the check out counter and…UH-OH! There is Bitchette, and she’s headed our way. I force myself to give her another smile, and hoping she will return it and crack the 1 inch make-up mask she is wearing.

(As an aside, Parisian older women do NOT know how to age gracefully. They tend to get fake tans (machines or crème), wear too much makeup, dye their hair bleach blond and wear tight (usually leather or suede) clothing to accentuate the figures they so carefully maintain by smoking 2 or more packs of unfiltered cigarettes while downing wine. Think Patsy minus the joie-de-vie. That describes most French older women. Oh, and they don’t just suddenly become this way. It starts very young, they actually become more and more rude as their plastic surgery brings their ears closer and closer until they meet in the middle of her face!)

So, the store is not crowded, and I’m headed for the closest checkout lane, being that little babyAna is starting to get a bit fussy, but nothing that can’t be cured with a piece of croissant. Suddenly, I notice Bitchette, heading for the very same checkout counter. I slow down to let her get in front of me, thinking, “Gee, how nice of me. Wouldn’t want her to miss eating her dry bread and water.” She turns around, glares at me (by this stage I’m wondering if I’ve done something evil to her in another lifetime) and calls over a manager.

“Hmmm…I wonder, maybe she’s got a problem.”

She actually complains to the manager that my daughter is eating a croissant, from a bag I opened in the store and she dropped some crumbs on the floor. I am speechless. With my limited French, I apologize the manager, the lady and anyone else within earshot.

So, any smiles? No. Any one look at me thinking, “What a silly bint?” No.

Well, I think, I’ve apologized, not to mention seen countless people open snacks for their children in this very same supermarket, but still apologize anyway.

So, I pay for my groceries and out I go. I think, “It’s a one-off thing. They can’t be all that bad. It must just be because my French is not good and I look foreign.”

Well, who do we see in the parking lot, but ole’ Bitchette herself. Is she tailing me? Is this the result of some weird FBI recruiting policy? Send bitchy old French women to tail unsuspecting women of Middle Eastern descent (actually, I’m ME, not descent, but…) and hope to drive them stark raving mad enough to go under the burka voluntarily?

Anyway, she glares at me some more. I’m trying to figure out what I’ve done to her or someone in her family. Anyway, she is parked right near me. Goody gumdrops. As I unpack my cart into the truck, put babyAna in her car seat, (who is by now very hungry and grouchy) and get in my car, she is pulling out of a spot behind me. Great, if she’ll just leave here before I do, it’ll be perfect. No worries, right? Wrong. Oops, I forgot to return my cart and get my 10F back. She starts blaring on her horn for me to move said cart. I am in the process of doing so when she starts to pull out, practically taking the cart with her. I wave my friendly, N American, “Thank you” wave and she finally pulls away, shaking her head. I’m sure when she gets home her desiccated old prune of a face will tell her poor husband all about the mean, rude American at the supermarket.

Arghhhh……this is not the best rant I’ve ever read, and I’m feeling better, but the main point I missed is this:

Why the hell do Parisians have to be so mean?

Not a smile from the moms at the park ( no smiles for me, no smiles for other moms, not even a grin for their own children). The moms look bored with life and as if they’d rather be on a beach somewhere sunning themselves than at the park with their children.

Argh…this is really starting to get me down. Thank goodness we are going away for a long weekend in a few weeks, to Dublin, which must be the most friendly city in the world!

Dublin eh?
Well you might wanna start a thread and give us Dublin dopers a chance to redeem our continent.

re: Le Rant
If that’s the worst display of Parisian arrogance you’ve yet encountered I would guess you’ve not been there that long.

I note you describe your French as “limited.” I totally don’t mean this snidely, but you may notice that when your French improves, people may start treating you more politely, or at least no worse than they treat one another.

My mother and I speak fluent French, and everyone we met in Paris was wonderful to us. If you have the time, you may wish to consider taking some adult ed French courses, and I’m sure the relationships you’re forming with your neighbours will help you improve your conversational French. Bonne chance!

Point taken, but this whole scene in the supermarket was nonverbal. It wasn’t even a matter of French. And I am studying French, but because I have a baby, not too much time to go to class. When in Japan I studied Japanese 6-8 hrs/week and I just don’t have the time to do that here. I know Parisians are rude, but this is ridiculous!
Annie

**

That doesn’t speak well for the French. For the most part I found the people in Germany to be polite even when I had difficulty with their language.

Marc

Not to piss any Parisians off but when I employed my admittedly very poor French there, everyone was pretty rude to us. Not so in the countryside or in any other European countries we visited but the Parisians lack of warmth to a foreigner was pretty noticable.

Sorry, I too wish it was different. C’est la prick.

You know, I never found the people of Paris to be any ruder than any other residents of a big city, like NYC, London, LA, or Madrid.

I lived in Paris for ten years, at first on Rue Vulpian in the 13th, later on Rue Chateau-Landon in the 10th. A few observations:

  1. This is a bit hard to describe adequately, but smiling excessively in normal interactions on the street seems to be, er, frowned upon in France. It’s seen a sign of at best insincerity and at worst simple-mindedness. In addition, the majority of persons observing any sort of conflict in the street will automatically drop an impassive mask over their faces. It seems culturally ingrained and it’s nothing personal.

  2. In my experience, few Parisians are as deliberately rude as the Madame Pruneau described in the OP. There does, however, seem to be a broad streak of nasty in some females of un certain age there. Who knows, maybe it comes from having to scrounge for onions during the last war. Also be aware that despite the cosmopolitan atmosphere around Paris, that there are plenty of stone bigots amongst the French, just as there are in other countries. I mean, someone makes up that 15% or so of the vote that the Front National has been getting in recent elections.

  3. The old bats of Paris are famous for their horridness, even amongst the French. See the film Tati Danielle sometime for an excellent satirical treatment of this phenomenon.

I can still recall one time my girlfriend and I were riding on the Metro, and sitting across from one of these characters. A couple of small kids got on at one stop, and finding the seat cushion to their liking, began bouncing up and down while shouting “Boing! Boing! Boing!” We were amused by the spectacle, but as this went on the witch opposite was clearly getting more and more agitated. Finally, she burst out (in French of course) “You must beat them! That’s the only way to stop that! Yes, they must be beaten at every opportunity!” After she stormed off, we looked at each other and collapsed with laughter.

I dated a Russian girl once who commented on the Americans and their silly smiling, so this might partly be a case of different expectations…

But, this makes me wonder why my missionary-kid raised-in-France friend finds it so incredible that the French have a reputation among other nationalities.

I guess that actually growing up there has given him a different sense of “normal” social interaction, and overall, it’s not rude, it’s “French”, just different. This sounds like “French” cubed, though. They can have it.

Le Sigh :rolleyes:

Sorry, I just had to say that.

I found the people of Paris to be very nice. When I got in, the first person I met showed me all around the city. It was his day off, and he had nothing better to do. Then when I looked confused on the Metro, some other person was real nice and explained it all to me. I speak American-College French, which is only partially intelligible to Parisian French, and they didn’t seem to mind speaking English.

I have to concur with El_Kabong and Cardinal. I have noted in a number of continental European countries that public smiling seems to be generally frowned upon (ooh, poor excuse for a pun, sorry).

The language things seems to be something enedemic to the French language. I mean this to be in no way indicative of francophones generally, but the only way you seem to be able to piss off a francophone more than by speaking english is by speaking in less-than-perfect or strangely-accented french. And GAWD FORBID you should speak French-Canadian to Continental French in Paris!! Whoo boy, they really appreciate that, I’ll tell you what.

It’s been my experience that this speak-my-language-properly-or-shut-the-fuck-up attitude is predominant in the larger centres. Paris and Montreal, very much so. In the smaller centres, or in the countryside, the effect is much less pronounced. A recent trip to Sherbrooke Quebec confirmed this again for me, as everyone I encountered was as helpful as they could be once my mid-range francophone abilities hit the wall.

My advice would be: continue as you’re going, and when they insist on treating you like the ugly n.american, oblige 'em and act like one.

z

Not to point fingers, but you should HEAR some Westmount Anglos when they have to deal with someone who speaks English with a Québécois accent.

I moved to Montreal speaking a fair amount of Parisian French, in 1995, three months prior to the last referendum. I have never been treated rudely by a Québécois person due to language. Not ever.

Oh God! My wife insists on going to Paris for Christmas! Couldn’t I just sign up for repetetive root canal instead?

Testy

What’s that quote from P.J. O’Rourke? Something to the effect of:

“The next time you’re looked upon like you just crawled out of the sewer by a French waiter, just remember that he’ll be spending his overseas vacation here, in Cuba.”

I get a kick out of that.

Unfortunatley Testy, if you are a tourist, they for some reason have tourist radar and are nice to you. After all, the level of tourism from the US has decreased (tourist from other countries is still level)and if you’ve got the dosh, they’ll welcome you. No, generally, oddly enough, the type of Parisian I’m talking about is not someone a tourist would come in contact with.

Here’s an interesting phenomena. When I am pushing my daughter in her poussette (pram, stroller), the only group of people who will CONSISTENTLY AND POLITELY help me get up and down the Metro stairs are the men of Arab and/or N African descent. I have had French men walk right by me, when we were the only two on the staircase (one of those nightmarish Chatelet ones that goes on for about 3 levels-transferring from RER to Metro)and even ignore my very polite excusemesircouldyahelpmewiththispoussette? And Arab/NAfricans have a bad rap here. They are generally the kindest, friendliest and funniest people you’ll meeet!

Arghhhh…Chivalry is dead among the Parisian man. Now, many of the men here come from the provinces and have brought their manners with them, but the homegrown Parisian male is a stuck-up snob. As a tourist you won’t meet these assholes. They are too busy in their expensive offices making million Euro deals. And suppressing their urges to be a woman.
Annie

Quite a few French have no use for Arabs or anyone who looks like they might be Arabic; they remember the atrocities committed during the Algerian war of independence in the fifties.

It sounds like you’ve just had bad luck with the people you’ve run into.

It hasn’t been my experience that Parisians are any ruder or nicer to tourists than they are to residents, and I have been both. I now live in a large U.S. city and I have seen maybe three times in my life someone help a person with a stroller down the subway stairs – ignoring people who need help is by no means limited to Parisians.

The woman in the grocery store seems to be just your plain average nasty weird person, not a special nasty weird French person. There are lots of mean and rude people in every country, including France. There are also lots of nice ones: like the family who owned one hotel I stayed in who invited me to dinner with them and took me on a several tours of Paris and wouldn’t let me pay for one centime. Or the Parisian woman I met who invited me to her family’s home in Perigord one Thanksgiving (an American holiday) when she found out I was going to be alone that week. Or the Parisian friends of one of my American acquaintances, who, when they heard I was living in Paris, called me up – a complete stranger to them – and invited me to dinner and offered to help me get acclimated. I could go on and on.

Did I meet nasty people there too? Of course. Just like I run into snotty people here in the U.S. every single day – rude people who shove their way past me as I’m trying to get off the train; shopkeepers who roll their eyes at me when I say I’m just looking; people who stare but just keep walking when I trip and drop everything in a big splat on the sidewalk; clerks who ignore me when I obviously need help finding something.

Keep trying. I’m sure you’ll meet the same percentage of nice people there are you would anywhere else, and the same percentage of rude people too.

See, the thing is, all of those people you mentioned had some sort of connection to you, even if it was as a friend of a friend. Americans (at least here in Dallas) will be nice to you even if you just share an elevator for a moment. And yes, they’ll help you navigate a stroller down a flight of stairs. At least I do whenever I see someone who needs help.

Those were just three examples I thought of. I interacted with plenty of French people who were either “nice” or just normal strangers (not noticeably rude) every day. Just like in any country. I’ve been all over the world and there are great people and assholes existing side by side everywhere. Some countries (some cities – some neighborhoods even) have cultural practices that may seem off-putting to outsiders. It seems that many Americans, especially those from non-metropolitan areas outside of the Northeast, perceive a stoic facial expression and tendency to mind one’s own business and not interact with strangers as “rude.” To me, that’s just how regular people act in a city.

To say that Americans are nice to others while sharing the elevator and that they help people carry strollers down the steps are as much generalizations as “all Parisians are mean and rude.” I ride in an elevator every day and most people look straight ahead. I see lots of people struggling with their strollers. Not all Americans are friendly and helpful either but that doesn’t make all of us rude or nasty.