Are French people generally assholes?

sszz

My Father in law is a taxi driver and he says without fail French passengers are the rudest and least friendly?

How accurate do you think this generalisation is?

Homer

About as accurate as saying all taxi drivers are uneducated wanke*s?

Dravokivich

Taxi driver in offensive generalisation shocker, hold the presses!

Valetta

sszz wrote: »

My Father in law is a taxi driver and he says without fail French passengers are the rudest and least friendly?

How accurate do you think this generalisation is?

Le pot calling la kettle noire.

CiDeRmAn

I have found its more a rural/urban thing.
Rural people are often more pleasant and genial regardless of country while urban dwellers can be gruff and short tempered.
These are themselves generalisations and must be stressed that this does not preclude people from the countryside being @sshats or city folk being salt of the earth.
I think It's more to do with the pace of life and built in stress of living in the big city.

Akrasia

Isn't this thread a teenie bit racist?

bbam

Having visited France maybe a dozen times, various places incluging large cities. I'd say they are a friendly enough lot, much the same as ourselves..

It is a bit irronic a Taxi driver generalising about people, I mean taxi drivers often all get tarred with the same brush, lazy, dishonest, smelly, rude.. the list goes on..

Potatoeman

Homer wrote: »

About as accurate as saying all taxi drivers are uneducated wanke*s?

What about French taxi drivers?

blacklilly

Having dated a French man I can confirm that your father in law is just one of those really irritating taxi drivers who'd complain about pretty much everything. .....oh generalisations , I love them!!

corkgsxr

I want in paris last month and found the French unhelpful and abrasive. Doubt id go back

orangesoda

You have the french to thank for your national flag

sszz

Akrasia wrote: »

Isn't this thread a teenie bit racist?

No, Frenchness isn't a race.

razorblunt

corkgsxr wrote: »

I want in paris last month and found the French unhelpful and abrasive. Doubt id go back

Erra that would be the Parisiens, sure even the French hate them!

sszz

blacklilly wrote: »

Having dated a French man I can confirm that your father in law is just one of those really irritating taxi drivers who'd complain about pretty much everything. .....oh generalisations , I love them!!

Nope he's a lovely guy.

what's wrong with generalisations?

Most people understand that for the sake of brevity the generalisation that "French people are assholes" doesn't mean every French person is an asshole, it means that a greater than average proportion of French people are assholes.

Auldloon

I lived in the south and the people were ace.

SEPT 23 1989

yes all 65 million of them

brandon_flowers

Potatoeman wrote: »

What about French taxi drivers?

Don't go there. Even the French hate them.

Toby Take a Bow

sszz wrote: »

Nope he's a lovely guy.

what's wrong with generalisations?

Most people understand that for the sake of brevity the generalisation that "French people are assholes" doesn't mean every French person is an asshole, it means that a greater than average proportion of French people are assholes.

What's wrong with generalisations, you say, while correcting the poster on their generalisation. When you talk about a 'greater than average proportion of French people' being assholes, is your father taking this from, what, 8 French people he has had in his taxi? 10? Those are some fairly low figures to judge a whole population.

Cienciano

French people are bang on. I've been to france 3 times at this stage, including paris and they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful.
I think they dislike loud idiot americans so they are rude back to them. So according to american tv (which we get a lot of) the french are rude.

crockholm

My favourite European country,and,in my experience, the friendliest country on the continent.The ability to converse with them in their mother tongue makes all the difference.Hope to retire there, Allah willing.

blacklilly

sszz wrote: »

Nope he's a lovely guy.

what's wrong with generalisations?

Most people understand that for the sake of brevity the generalisation that "French people are assholes" doesn't mean every French person is an asshole, it means that a greater than average proportion of French people are assholes.

Personally I don't like generalisation and particularly generalisations based upon such a small sample size.

Potatoeman

corkgsxr wrote: »

I want in paris last month and found the French unhelpful and abrasive. Doubt id go back

Do you speak French? I have heard if you make even a small effort they appreciate it but if you start speaking English straight away they consider that rude.

keithclancy

No

elefant

sszz wrote: »

No, Frenchness isn't a race.

Foucault might argue that modern racism is not always about difference in race.

HomelessMidge

Been to around 10 different countries. French are a really nice bunch and never had any trouble. The rudest would have to have been in Amsterdam. I would never go back! Rude unhelpful gits. Every minute of my trip was a nightmare. Then getting the flight home. Standing in line with my luggage to check it on to my flight. Waiting around 30 minutes. Get to the top and lady says no I'm closed now join that other queue which is at least another 30 minutes wait. Missed my flight!

Guy:Incognito

elefant wrote: »

Foucault might argue that modern racism is not always about difference in race.

Dead people cant argue

Anyway, why argue and change the meaning of Racism when there are perfectly usable words for the things your trying to change it to suit. Whats wrong with Xenophobia? (the word, not the act )

herisson

Used to live in France and honestly they are really nice people. I did encounter a few rude people, but its like that anywhere, you will have friendly people and you will have rude people.

Fuzzytrooper

Cheese eating surrender monkeys!

Menas

OP is on a roll.
In the few days they have registered on here we have had ....

French are assholes thread started.
Showing cleavage is weird thread started.
Friend on £1500 per day thread started.
Posting in feminism thread in Ladies lounge.
Wife giving out to him about getting drunk.

Thats a lot of drama in 20 posts.

The Backwards Man

I held a door open for a Frenchman once and he never even said thanks!

coolemon

They are extremely nice in France. Cycled through France twice and they were always very helpful.

Before I went I had a preconceived notion that they are arrogant, rude and didnt make any attempt to speak English. I couldnt have been more wrong.

Now if I were to generalise -> id say the Basques were the rudest people iv ever encountered. And the Croats are most like the Irish.

Chazz Michael Michaels

orangesoda wrote: »

You have the french to thank for your national flag

We are forever in their debt...........

No Pants

My missus told me about this. I thought that it was hilarious that someone might need to be hospitalised due to rudeness.

Potatoeman

Potatoeman wrote: »

Do you speak French? I have heard if you make even a small effort they appreciate it but if you start speaking English straight away they consider that rude.

No, the waiters just switch back to English anyway. Even if you're not a native English speaker.
You're not good enough to speak our language, peasant!

That's probably just waiters, though, supposed to be notorious for that kinda thing

Czarcasm

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I held a door open for a Frenchman once and he never even said thanks!

Merci?

Either that, or the onions around his neck gave it away


EDIT: Forgot to add my own anecdotal evidence that 65 million people are fcuking amazing -

French girl in the club one night, wouldn't come back to mine, said we'd go back to hers instead, a fcuking tent in a camping park! I said to myself to hell with it she's ridiculously hot, into the tent anyway and well of course we had sex.

She disappeared outside for a minute afterwards and I wasn't sure what was going on, I was getting my clothes back on when her friend arrived at the entrance to the tent. Her friend wasn't so hot so there was a bit of "Non, must go, allez vite!" (I genuinely DID have a train to catch that morning), so I'm crawling out of the tent on all fours, and suddenly I feel my hands in a wet patch on the ground...

Yeah, then I remembered she'd gone out for a minute, she was after pissing on the ground outside the tent! "The dirty..." I thought to myself, but damn she was good, so on balance I'd have to say the French aren't the most hygienic, but damn they're intense in tents!

syklops

Not had much trouble with the French, however, don't get me started on father-in-laws.

For Forks Sake

syklops wrote: »

Not had much trouble with the French, however, don't get me started on father-in-laws.

...and taxi drivers

Legs.Eleven

bluewolf wrote: »

No, the waiters just switch back to English anyway. Even if you're not a native English speaker.
You're not good enough to speak our language, peasant!

That's probably just waiters, though, supposed to be notorious for that kinda thing

Waiters in most continental countries, ime, are often quite rude but they're also often underpaid and perhaps justifiably feel they don't get paid enough to put up with the ****e they have to put up with very often.



I've never met a French person I didn't like. Great conversationalists too. I'm a total sucker for their style and sophistication as well; almost everything about that country is just so. Beautiful. I even admire the arrogance of the Parisians; they even do arrogance with panache. I'd love to live there for even a year to pick up a bit of the lingo and experience the lifestyle there.


Very disappointed about the increasing popularity of the National Front party there though.

Greenmachine

I have had two french bosses over the years. They were both very serious but certainly not rude.

Dublinpato

In all my years of internet and the outside world i have never came across a french person who wasn't a complete bag of douche, I have friends from Poland,India,America,Canada,Russia,UK,Lithuania but the French not a chance it's like they hate everyone.

sszz

blacklilly wrote: »

Personally I don't like generalisation and particularly generalisations based upon such a small sample size.

Good for you, I like them.

Mousewar

Definitely not rude. They just don't say 'thank you' seven million times like Irish people or start and end every sentence with 'sorry'.
Anything less than that usually seems rude to us Irish.

keithclancy

coolemon wrote: »

They are extremely nice in France. Cycled through France twice and they were always very helpful.

Before I went I had a preconceived notion that they are arrogant, rude and didnt make any attempt to speak English. I couldnt have been more wrong.

Now if I were to generalise -> id say the Basques were the rudest people iv ever encountered. And the Croats are most like the Irish.

Almost everyone in the world is rude to an Irish person.

A nation of people that never say what we mean and are constantly saying "Sorry" all the time for no good reason.

Drives other nationalities mad.

Legs.Eleven

Almost everyone in the world is rude to an Irish person.

I think most people agreed they're NOT rude though, so not sure what you're getting that idea.

A nation of people that never say what we mean and are constantly saying "Sorry" all the time for no good reason.

Sorry is a synonym for "excuse me" or "pardon" in Ireland. It doesn't mean sorry in the strict sense of the word (apologising). I presume you're Irish so you should know that already.

Drives other nationalities mad.

No it doesn't. It might confuse some of them if they don't realise what we're trying to express when we say sorry i.e. not apologising.

I thought canadians had the monopoly on that
Sure they changed their law to make sure "sorry" isn't an admission of liability :pac:

The Diabolical Monocle

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I held a door open for a Frenchman once and he never even said thanks!

A good deed is its own reward.

keithclancy

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I think most people agreed they're NOT rude though, so not sure what you're getting that idea.



Sorry is a synonym for "excuse me" or "pardon" in Ireland. It doesn't mean sorry in the strict sense of the word (apologising). I presume you're Irish so you should know that already.



No it doesn't. It might confuse some of them if they don't realise what we're trying to express when we say sorry i.e. not apologising.

Germans and Dutch do not know this, or it doesn't make any sense to them. They end up saying "But you did nothing wrong, why are you apologising"

Yes, it drives them mad, I've been living outside of Ireland for the past 6 years and have heard endless stories of people who worked and lived in Ireland that had some situation where the Irish person agreed to something they didn't really want to agree to and then complained about it for an age afterwards.

ArnieSilvia

Actually been in France for few weeks on a round trip (Calais-LeMans-LaRochelle-Limoges-Annecy-Nancy), met quite a lot of people and generalisations are unfair. Overall, I was very impressed.

Our trip was a mix of campsites at ocean and large lake plus lots of sightseeing.

I met a wonderful granddad from Paris with his granddaughter who actually were first to talk with us. And lots of others.

But there was also that lady, owner of the restaurant, quite direct so could be "rude" by Irish standards. I quite understood her, seeing that she was still in the restaurant when I was going to bed and there were fresh baguettes made in the morning by the time we got up. She must have had 4 hrs sleep a night over whole summer. No wonder she'd get upset with another moron looking for something that had nothing to do with her business .

From talking with average French I figured out that their life is much much harder than I thought, lots of stress and hardship. We have a free ride in Ireland, I thought.

To summarise, there's lots of rude people in every country.

Legs.Eleven

Germans and Dutch do not know this, or it doesn't make any sense to them. They end up saying "But you did nothing wrong, why are you apologising"

They don't understand the nuances of the word in Ireland then. Their problem, not ours. I've met Spaniards who think Germans are rude when the Spanish are very direct themselves.


It's a case of lost in translation much like the judgement some people make on the French, for example. Us Europeans have very different ideas of manners and it varies from country country. Lots of miscommunication and lost in translation.


The Spanish don't like the French as they find them arrogant and rude yet many people find the Spanish abrupt and rude. You have to spend some time in a country to understand their ways.

Yes, it drives them mad, I've been living outside of Ireland for the past 6 years and have heard endless stories of people who worked and lived in Ireland that had some situation where the Irish person agreed to something they didn't really want to agree to and then complained about it for an age afterwards.

But that's a totally different issue though? What's that got to do with the word sorry? I've lived outside Ireland for 10 years and have never heard complaints about how it drove them mad.

clumsyklutz

Have been to both the South of France and Paris, I really loved the south, people seemed much more relaxed and friendly, whereas Paris (although it was really beautiful), any people I came accross (bar hotel staff) seemed a little more abrupt and rude, that was until I started speaking French to them, their attitude completely changed so maybe it has something to do with that....:P

Lia_lia

My Dad has lived in France for 22 years. He thinks "The French" are a shower of ****. But by that I think he means a certain class of people of over there. And the government. Or something.. He has loads of French friends who are lovely people.

I think they're grand. Same as anywhere else really.