Parisians Perceived As Rude

Posted by Bridget Lux Jul 15, 2007

Many people in the world perceive that the French are rude and perception is one powerful force. There’s a story circulating in the American media, I read it in the Los Angeles Times, about the mayor of Paris launching an initiative that includes smiles, speaking English and being nicer to tourists.

In essence, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe wants Parisians to understand the importance of tourists, which account for about 12% of all jobs in the French capital.

While I understand the importance of tourists in France and agree that treating them courteously is imperative, my beef is with the initial assumption. It’s a perception that the French are rude, and the Parisian waiters and cab drivers could be PollyAnna-ish and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Since I moved to France nearly two years ago, I’ve often encountered the question of whether the French are rude. No matter how often I explain that, in my opinion, if you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you, people have made up their minds.

The unfortunate part of this equation is that most of these people - about 85 percent - have never met a French person. It’s as if they want to believe that the French are rude. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter how nice a waiter at a café near the Notre Dame Cathedral is. It won’t matter if the cab drivers are the most polite in the world because these people who perceive that the French are rude have never and will probably never visit France.

On the other hand, of the 15.3 million visitors who spent time in Paris in 2006, literally about 97 percent of them say they want to come back. So, I think Paris should spend its resources on luring people to Paris. And then let those people decide for themselves.