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| Questions
about France and the French (1) |
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And also :
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What a paradoxical country! Have
you ever wondered how France can be the fourth or fifth industrial
power in the world when people take to the streets on a regular
basis to go on strike? Or why the streets of this country of
wondrous monuments and museums are marred by dog poop? Or, speaking
of dogs, why there are large signs in restaurants and butcher
shops showing that dogs are not allowed, and dogs are in the
restaurants and shops anyway? Or why little French children look
(and are) so disciplined in school but when "let loose"
are so rowdy? Or why, when you try out your French, people look
at you like you're crazy? And the question of all questions: WHY DO THE
FRENCH LIKE JERRY LEWIS?!
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First question : Are The French
Clean ?
Read about Turkish
toilets.... and visit a site devoted to public street
toilets (!) in Paris
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Commenting on
this famous painting by David, "Marat, the Revolutionary
leader stabbed in his bathtub", a humorist (who? I read
it's Mark Twain) said "Too bad, for once, a Frenchman was
taking a bath" |
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A few questions about
France
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Q. |
A. |
| Are the French
anti-American? |
No,
they're pro-French! Seriously
speaking, the French are "damned if they do" and "damned
if they don't". If they disagree with U.S. policy, they
are seen as anti-American. If they agree, they are seen as valets
of U.S. imperialists. What a conundrum! Felix Rohatyn,
former U.S. ambassador to France said recently : "The anti-Americanism
today encompasses not a specific policy like Iranian sanctions
but a feeling that globalization has an American face on it and
is a danger to the European and French view of society. There
is a sense that America is such an extraordinary power that it
can crush everything in its way. It is more frustration and anxiety
now than plain anti-Americanism." For more : click here. |
| Why are the French so cold (or arrogant or distant)
? |
In the absence of any relationship, silence
is neutral (in the street, in an elevator, etc...). Franco-American
anthropologist Raymonde Carroll
writes: "It is indeed in public places that Americans
in France for the first time have the experience, at times amusing,
but often unpleasant and even painful of cultural misundrestanding.
They feel rejected, disapproved of, criticized or scorned without
understanding the reason for this "hostility" and they
can only draw one of two conclusions : the French hate Americans"
or the French are cold (hostile / unpleasant / arrogant / despicable)"...
This is essentially due to the fact that Americans and the French
do not attribute the same meaning to verbal exchanges.... together
in a limited space ...the French person will recreate distance with silence,
the American with conversation..."
. For most French, Americans
are over-communicative and too familiar and they are always very
disappointed to see that this American who was so nice and friendly
does not even remember their name. For the French, if you are
not a friend, you must be not cold but neutral. If your are socially
too friendly with them, they think you are unsincere.... See
also Pascal Baudry who gives a psycho-analytical
explanation of it and read what Roman authors wrote about
the Gauls. |
| Are they rude ? |
One of the best
explanations for this was given by Nick Yapp and Michel Syrett
in " Xenophobe's Guide to the French " . It's simply
a factual matter. The French, they point out, are rude when they
want to be. Their rudeness is neither unthinking nor forgetful,
they say. They're rude when the occasion warrants it. Are they
rude only to innocent foreigners ? Of course not ! " Among friends ",
write Yapp and Syrett, " insults are also frequently traded,
but with no permanent damage to the relationships. Quite a different
case from England and the U.S. where if you get to that level,
the friendship is condemned for life ". The point of all
this is that if foreigners freak because they detect rudeness,
irony, or a slight, they should feel flattered. They're being
treated as if they were French ! |
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More
questions ? |
| You surely have many more questions such as these
about France and the French. Harriet has tried to give an answer
to some of them in her books. If you have other questions you'd
like to have answered, please contact us. Your question might
be selected for our "Question of the month"
section! See 50 questions
on France (US State Department). |
French Quiz
Try to answer these questions
and click on each of them to get the right answer (all the answers,
and many others, are on that site...) !
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1. Who is the employer
of professors in public schools and universities ?
- School boards ?
- The State
- Cities and Regions ?
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2. The % of Textile, Food, Wine,
Water, Alcoholic Beverages, Perfumes and Beauty in the French
exports to the USA is :
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3. What does it mean when someone
asks : do you take the "pont"
(bridge) ?
- Are you going over a river ?
- Are you making a four-day week
end with one day off ?
- Did you get a raise ?
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4. What is the name of the final exam in high schools
?
- No exam
- Baccalauréat
- Abitur
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5. The Hunchback
of Notre-Dame ("Quasimodo") is a character from
- Victor Hugo
- Collodi
- Walt Disney
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6. The Public
sector in France employs
- less than 2 million
- between 2 and 6 million
- more than 6 million
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7. What is the cost of tuition
at Sorbonne for a year?
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8. For the French the "exception culturelle française"
(the French cultural exception) means :
- French culture is more sophisticated
than other cultures
- Cultural goods should not be
treated like the other goods
- The French have something that
no other people has
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9. Georges
Brassens was :
- A politician
- A singer
- A sculptor
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10. How many four-year-old
French children attend school ?
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11. What is the temperature
of boiling water in ° Centigrade ?
- 100 ° Centigrade
- 0 ° Centigrade
- 232 ° Centigrade
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12. What is "la Francophonie"
?
- A computer software to learn
French
- A group of countries where French
is an official language
- The French accent in a foreign
language
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13. What is a "Grande
Ecole" ?
- A good high school
- A sort of university
- A school for very tall people
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14. Frequently used acronyms
: what is ?
- SNCF : ..............
- SMIC : .............
- RTT : .............
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15. Who was Vercingetorix
?
- A XIXth Century singer ?
- The leader of the Gauls against
Caesar ?
- A character in a popular comic
strip?
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16. The " Hundred
Year War " against England took place
- between 1066 and 1166
- between 1337 to 1453
- between 1722 and 1812
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17. Who invented the smart
card ?
- Steve Jobs (American)
- Roland Moreno (French)
- Vladislav Tomasewicz (Polish)
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18.
Productivity per hour in France, compared to USA=100 is :
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19. The
economic ranking of France
is :
- among the first five world economic
powers
- between sixth and 10th
- between 11th and 15th
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20. The national
bird of France is :
- the rooster
- the sparrow
- the pigeon
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21. In politics,
a " liberal " is
and a " radical "
is
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22. The "pieds-noirs"
(black feet) are :
- Homeless people
- Former European residents in
Algeria
- Members of the Anarchist movement
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23. To read about sports,
the French read :
- L'Express
- L'Equipe
- Sports Illustrated
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24. Johnny Hallyday
is
- A French rock star
- An English writer
- A Belgian soccer star
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25. " La rentrée
" is :
- The day kids go back to school
- The access door to a theater
- The period of sales
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26. A " Comité
d'Entreprise " is :
- The board of directors
- A worker's association
- A partnership of companies
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27. Who said : "Our
armies will bring to the world Liberty and the Rights of
Man " ?
- George W.Bush
- Napoleon
- Stalin
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28. What was the
main cause of the suburban riots in Nov.2005 ?
- The place of Islam in France
- Un-employment for unskilled
workers
- Racism in France
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29. In WW2, French
military losses were :
- around 10% of US military losses
- about the same
- twice bigger
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30. Are there volcanoes
in France ?
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| More to come....
(and more questions in US Government's
documents) |
Read the page
"geographical facts
about France" |
See some of
the questions asked to people applying for French
citizenship |
Why is France different
....
- According to
Time Magazine (April 22, 2002), "France is different
because.... it sees itself as different" !
- Is there a French
Art
de Vivre
? See some typical French
values
- Harriet Welty
wrote "After 20 Years in France, Still Part of the Foreign
legion" : read the article.
- Not so different
? America and France share a universal ambition. Read about this
rivalry...
- See what is
making the headlines in France and what's
only in France
- More to come...
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- The French do not like market
economy ! According to
an international poll, France is the ONLY country, among twenty,
where the is a majority of NO to the question " Do you think
that the system of free enterprise and market economy is the
best for the future ? ". France : Yes=36%, No=50% ; USA
: Yes=71%, No=24%. See detailed
results. The
French think that "control" is better than "market"
but they are not alone and this view is largely shared
in Europe
: see a very illustrative chart about it.
- Says Robert
Rochefort (director of Center of Research for the Study and Observation
of the Conditions of Life, Paris) : "There is a certain
cultural attitude in France that considers work, money, success and business
important only in as much as they contribute to more important
things like family, personal happiness and quality of life.That
produces resistance to reform, especially when it comes to public
services." (see the French and the State).
- One of the most
important differences between the French society and the American
society is probably the fact that, by far, France is a much less
religious
country
- In a poll, quoted
by Time, asked about
- "what is
very important to succeed in life", the French answer :
Family life (85%), Love life (78%), Professional life (59%),
Friends (55%), Spiritual life (19%)
- and to the question
"a successful life means...", they answer : being happy
with what life has given me, both personally and professionally
(41,3%), feeling fulfilled in my personal life and limiting the
encroachment of work to a strict minimum (27,7%), striking a
balance between my ambitions and my ability to achieve them (22,1%),
having a successful professional career involving substantial
responsibility and income, based on my talent and hard work (8,3%),
no opinion (6%).
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| USEFUL TIPS.... The French do not value
consensus in itself and a French person does not feel
uncomfortable when he/she takes a position against everybody
else (just consider French foreign policy, and not only during
the Irak war...). When you face this situation it is often better
not to try to make him/her " be reasonable" and "come
half way" etc... : it will only make things worse! This
is why there are so many transport strikes and why they are so
surprinsingly well-accepted : in 1995, after 3 weeks of transport
strikes, when many people had to walk several hours to their
workplace, a majority of people still declared they understood
the strikers (who, by the way, are relatively well paid and can
retire at age 50 or 55). In France, many people feel that, if
they agree with you, you fooled them somehow and the safest position
is to be alone against everyone else. Many aggressive little
dogs have the same vison of life in society... It is important
to understand this attitude : the French do not trust their counterparts
nd do not believe a win-win solution may exist ; they do not
like to compromize (remember : there is no translation for "checks
and balances"). Cogan cites Couve de Murville, a French Minister
of Foreign Affairs, giving his instructiuons to the French Ambassadors
"The important thing in a negociation is to defend one's
point of view. An agreement can come as an extra. The objective
is not to arrive at a negociated solution : it is to defend one's
point of view." And he adds later, about a specific negociation
: "For the first quarter of an hour, I presented the position
of France. From then, until the twentieth hour, I presented the
position of France. At the twentieth hour, I negociated the position
of France". |
Best possible answers to some good questions
|
Many questions
about France and the French refer to French history : here are
a few examples of Over-Simplifying
Answers (O.S.A.) to (frequently asked) good questions (G.Q.)
:
- G.Q. Why is France
such a bureaucracy ! O.S.A. Just an
example to illustrate WHY some aspects of French life are indeed
bureaucratic. It is much more complicated to create a company
in France than it is in the USA. One of the reasons is that to
hire people (or be self employed) you have to comply with French
labor rules, one of them being that any person employed MUST
be adequately covered against hazards of health, professional
life and old age. You are therefore required to go through a
rather complicated process with several agencies (Securité
Sociale, Urssaf, etc) to benefit from health coverage, retirement
plan, unemployement benefit etc.... The French view is that if
this coverage was not mandatory, the poorest, the weakest, the
most stupid and people lacking foresight would NOT be covered
: the responsibility of the society is to expect that some people
will not be responsible and must be protected against themselves
so they do not die in the poor-house or rely on the the "
generosity " of the wealthier. It is the role of the State to ensure it.
Conclusion : if creating a company is more complicated, it is
not (or not only) because the French are stupid and lazy, it
is also because they have a different (not better, not worse
: different) vision of life in society. When they learn that
40 million or more Americans do not have health coverage, the
French are sincerely horrified (as much as you are when you talk
about the French bureaucracy !).
- G.Q. : Are the French anti-semitic ? O.S.A. : It is a fact that the number of anti-semitic
incidents is growing in France (and in Europe). France has the
largest Jewish
community in the world after Israel and the USA. There are
anti-semitic people in France and episodes of French history
illustrate it sadly (affaire Dreyfus,
Vichy regime). However, Americans should keep in mind two facts
when they read the US press : questioning Israeli policy is not
synonymous with anti-semitism and when young Arabs write obscene
graffitis on a synagogue, it is an exaggeration to write that
" the French are anti-semitic " : the Israel-Palestine
conflict has enormous repercussions between the Jewish and Arab
communities in France. The number of anti-semitic threats or
acts has risen from an average of 100 (1995-1999) to 600 (200-2005).
There are indeed anti-Semitic acts in France but it is grossly
exagerated to say that it is an anti-Semitic country. Here is
a recent example : Mr. A., a Tunisian indicted by a Tribunal
Correctionnel for swindling and various other charges placed
a request to challenge the judge using the argument that she
was Jewish and would be prejudiced (Nov. 3, 2003) ; he lost his
case, was sentenced to a huge fine (the maximum legal amount)
for contempt of court and the State is suing him for anti-Semitism.
If the New York Times had reported the story without mentioning
the whole story, it could make (another) shocking headline such
as " Rise of anti-Semitism in France : in Paris, a defendant
challenges his judge because she is Jewish ".
Beware of what you read (sometimes) in the US press ! (for
example : after a strong condemnation of anti-Semitism by President
Chirac, the headline in the International Herald Tribune/New
York Times Nov.20, 2003 was "A less-than-full condemnation
of anti-Semitism" with nothing in the article to substantiate
this depreciating headline). Beware also of what you DON'T read
: anything favorable related to the French attitude toward anti-semitism
: see an example.
One must add that French Muslims have a more favorable attutude
toward Jews (71%) than UK Muslims (32%) : see a European
comparative study and read my editorial on the bias
in the U.S. press.
- More questions : go to top
of the page
|
- G.Q. I was in France and everyone was nice to me
: how come ? O.S.A. Many
Americans believe that France is violently anti-American and
that Americans will be ill-treated when in France. Nothing substantiates
this prejugé and this question is just irrelevant.
Remember that criticizing American policy is not criticizing
individual Americans. For this reason, comments like " the
last thing the French would want to see is the crowning of a
Yank as Tour champ.. " or " There were, for example,
few signs of war-related anti-Americanism at the French Open.
" (both in Time magazine, July 7, 2003) are just as stupid
as saying " I had a cup of coffee with my neighbour and
he did not try to kill me ". I receive many messages or
questions of this kind (see
one) and it is extremely depressing for me that they can
even be formulated.
- G.Q. : Why
did France lose the war in 1940
? O.S.A. : it was
the third Franco-German war in 69 years, WW1 had been a massacre
(more than 1,3 million French soldiers killed, to compare to
300 000 American soldiers in WW2 on two fronts with a population
5 times bigger : see detailed figures),
French governments were corrupt and incompetent, for French leaders
the major threat was communism and not fascism, the chiefs of
the army were incompetent, their strategy was absurd (building
a fortification line, which was bypassed), Germany (80 million)
was bigger than France (40 million), etc... Remember Pearl Harbor
? What could have happened if the distance between Japan an the
USA, instead of several thousand miles, was a quarter of a mile
(this is the distance between France and Germany) ? France was
crushed and this led to the shameful Vichy
regime. It is a fact that this rapid military defeat was
a shock for the whole world but is it fair to make stupid jokes
about "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" ? After all
Japan and Germany surrendered in 1945 and Fox News does make
racist jokes about it... Read : Tuchman
or Paxton and see Kubrick's
Paths of Glory
- G.Q.
: Why are the French against religious
freedom in schools ? O.S.A.
: We do not mean the same thing by "religious freedom".
For Americans, it means "anybody can have his/her own religious
belief and show it". For the French, it means "anybody
can have his/her own religious belief and NOT show it",
not to offend people who have other religious beliefs or no religious
beliefs whatsoever. The recent law on the Islamic
veil is to protect this French concept of religious freedom
and "laïcité".
Read more about religion
in France.
- G.Q. : Why
is France so strongly centralized ?
O.S.A. : the whole history
of France is the building of a state
by the monarchy, against powerful local autonomies and cultures
(Brittany, Burgundy, Toulouse, etc..) ; the kings and the republic
have always been afraid that the country would split and central
state persistently reinforced its power, its language, against
the rest of the country, its cultures, its languages. Read :
Braudel
- G.Q. : Why aren't
the French more grateful for what America did for them ? O.S.A.
: Americans are very often upset by this. You must consider that
it depends on the generation : for young people, WWII (not to
mention WWI) does not mean much. You must also consider that,
even grateful, you cannot take into consideration this sort of
historical fact in your decisions with no limit in time or in
issues (developping a competitor like Airbus or a having a different
foreign policy): it is as if the French blamed the USA for not
supporting XXIth century French policy because France supported
the American Revolution (and actually this was a common thought
in XIXth century France : read
more and see Roger).
Gratitude is no synonym for automatic conformity or subservience
(read a 2003-letter
to the IHT). Constantly reminding people how proud you are having
helped them shows that you think that you have gained a permanent
control on them and it can be very counterproductive : read the
story of the immortal Monsieur
Perrichon and the
guide for the GI's by the US Army. American must understand
that the French are BOTH grateful and free to think differently,
and they have a different vision of true friendship...
- More to come...
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| DID YOU KNOW THAT. ?
A key-concept to better understand the French : France and the
US have a very different vision of friendship. In France,
when you are close to someone, you have to share his/her problems
and give your opinion : this is being a good friend. You are
committed ! Not giving it would be the sign that you do not care
about him/her. This is why the French love very animated conversations
in which they strongly disagree between themselves, when Americans
try to avoid it to protect friendship. With a friend, you can
talk freely and express openly your disagreement : it doesn't
affect your friendship. This is why the French are sincerely
surprised when Americans say :"You disagreed with our foreign
policy : therefore, we are not friends". It is also important
to know that for the French, if it is more difficult to create
a contact, friendship is expected to last longer ! A common idea
in France is that, for Americans, friendship is more superficial
than for the French and it is difficult to make an Anerican friend
: try to make
a French friend
! |
|
To table
of contents
To questions for US
diplomats and GIs
Back to home
page
|
For more on intercultural
differences, order Harriet Welty Rochefort's
books :
- "French Toast, An American in Paris Celebrates
The Maddening Mysteries of the French",
St.Martin's Press, New York, 1999
- "French Fried, The Culinary Capers of An American
in Paris", St.Martin's Press,
New York, 2001
More on Harriet's books (excerpts, upcoming
events, testimonials, etc..)
Together
or separately, Harriet and Philippe speak
about Intercultural Differences
: click here
for information.
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