Last year my daughter and I were fortunate enough to have a 2 day layover in Paris and had a blast trying to run around and see everything before flying back to the U.S.
While there I quickly became aware Paris has a major restroom problem. It was common to wait in line 20-30 minutes to use a toilet while out in public. While waiting in line for a porta potty I started a conversation with a local waiting behind me who confirmed this was normal. On the morning of my second day there I finally realized why. Multi-toilet public restrooms do not exist in Paris (or are very rare). On my second day I made a point of watching out for one and they were all single person restrooms. Even in the largest airport in France the restroom lines were long as there were just a large number of single person restrooms. Which brings me to my question:
Why no multi-person restrooms in Paris, France?
A few follow up questions:
Is urinating/defecating more taboo in French culture than in the U.S.?
Is this a safety feature, cultural norm, or both?
Is it the same in other parts of France?
I thought this was going to be about the European custom of pay toilets vs. free public restrooms in North America.
I didn’t notice that France was any worse than (say) Germany or The Netherlands in terms of public restrooms. If we really needed a restroom, we would go to a fast food joint.
When I was in Paris recently you had to basically go to a subway station or a museum to use a restroom and use their pay toilet. Luckily Paris has those everywhere.
Interesting. When we were there most of the restrooms were very clean and free but all were single person. This is what you’d see everywhere (often with long lines):
In the US I believe all states require restaurants with seating to have restrooms. Most of the time they don’t care if you use it without eating there.
I had no problem finding restrooms in Paris in January - granted, I tended to make a point of using them at whatever museum/attraction I visited on a given day. Those all tended to be multi-user restrooms. I only used one of the public self-cleaning toilets once, and those are all single user toilets. And yes, it could be a wait between someone using it, then it cleaning itself
And I assume the airport you refer to is Roissy/Charles de Gaulle - and even there, any restroom I used was multi-stall as far as I remember.
I was in Paris nearly 40 years ago so my memories are not the freshest. What I remember were mostly pay toilets, but at least one was multi-person. I don’t remember any porta-potties on the street.
I do remember that several of the hotels we stayed in during the France trip (which was more than just Paris) did not have toilets for each room, there was one toilet at the end of the hall for everyone on the floor to use (fortunately, the floors were small). No, we weren’t staying at the newest hotels. Let’s just say it was obvious that the indoor toilets and plumbing were added some considerable time after the building was built in a couple cases.
I think perhaps France simply has fewer toilets. I certainly hope the toilet “paper” available at public toilets has improved.
Those of us in the group I was in were told to keep coins on hand to use the pay toilets wherever we might happen to be.
The public urinals were only useful to 49% of the population at any time. Why Frenchmen felt a need to have a place to piss every other block always puzzled me, especially when women were, apparently, expected to simply not relieve themselves when outside the home.
As soon as someone exits, the door closes behind them and the cleaning cycle immediately begins; it takes a minute or two. However, if someone really wanted, they could spend up to 15–20 minutes in there before the jakes kicked them out, and that would be a bit of a wait.
I remember well, the first time I took my wife (then girlfriend) to Paris. An hour or so after lunch (vin compris) she needed a WC. I took her into the nearest department store and (after asking for directions since there are no signs) we went to the toilets.
She was rather shocked to find that to access a WC, she had to walk past a line of urinating men. There was the usual old lady sitting at a table in the entrance with a saucer in front of her. I don’t know if I short-changed her, or whether she scowled at all the customers.
Anyway - if you want a reasonably clean WC in Paris, go to a department store.
I had a pleasant experience in Jamaica years ago. Over the course of several hours while drinking in a bar that required a purchase to get the key to the bathroom, several people requested the key but didn’t really want a drink, so they ordered and paid for a bottle of Red Stripe, took the key but left the bottle
I was drinking and chatting with the 'tender and he looked at the beer, looked at me, and asked if he should throw it out. So I drank it. Rinse, repeat x 3.
That’s a good point; by far the most common place that my wife and I used restrooms in Paris was at various museums (which usually had pretty nice restrooms).
My wife used the sanisettes a couple of times and I believe on several occasions we saw ones that were out of order.
It might be most states, but it definitely isn’t all states. NYC only requires public restrooms in restaurants established after 1977 with more than 20 seats. And they absolutely do restrict them to customers.
When I went last year there definitely was a way for an idiot to leave the stall but somehow prevent it from cleaning itself so it would wait the full 20 minutes or so before opening again. Twice I had a situation where I was waiting for at least 10 minutes waiting for the door to open and someone to step out only for it to open automatically with nonone inside.
I guess that’s better than pissing on the street, but Jesus…