[Tiara]

Originally posted by karajorma
That said I've found that most of the french people I know are quite pleasant. I think it may be just the big cities where people act that way. When I lived in Rennes I found lots of people who were happy to speak English to me.

Well, yes, I might've been a bit harsh with hating 'most of them' But the ones in Paris and Marsailles are truly

I too have French friends but they at least know how to act in front of foreigners. They respect others for who they are and that's why I respect them. But if people treat me like garbage the first time I meet them I'll do the samne to them.

Funny thing is, when I was there they didn't know i could speak French so i heard them talking about me and my friends in French. I totally scared them when I spoke French and cursed them in 5 different French dialects

[kasperl]

It's always fun when people assume you don't speak a language and you do, in the end.

[Stunaep]

So it boils down to what, you shouldn't judge people or nations based on racial stereotypes? Gee, that's new.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Stunaep
So it boils down to what, you shouldn't judge people or nations based on racial stereotypes? Gee, that's new.

Ow, go screw a donkey Stunaep with your 'Gee, that's new' comment.

It's exactly what this is about. But the French I'm talking about don't seem to grasp that very simple concept. They outright refuse to do so.

And before you even try accusing me I'm not judging on racial stereotypes, I'm judging on experience.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Stunaep
So it boils down to what, you shouldn't judge people or nations based on racial stereotypes? Gee, that's new.

It boils down to the fact that you should never assume someone is arrogant because they are French but that when you go to Paris you should expect to run into some very arrogant people sooner or later.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by karajorma
sooner or later.

Replace that with 'practically all the time' (In Paris at least)

[Thorn]

Tiara, Quebecois (French Canadians) are worse than the real French. I've been to Montreal a few times, and every time I was in a resturant, it took me about an hour to get served, while people who came in after me (who just happened to speak french) were served in a few minutes. The last time me and my friend started yelling out "SERVE US YOU BIGOTS" and they got to serving us real quick.
Every sign in Quebec has to have everything in French first, and in the larger type than the English. If it's in English only you get fined, but the ones that are in French only they dont care about. Canada's primary language is English FFS. French is secondary. I'm not exadgerating either when I say that the rest of the country hates Quebec. The only reason we care if they leave is because it would split the country in half.

[Genryu]

Well... That explains it. Marseille and Paris ? The two cities with over-inflated egos ? (By the way, you should see when there's a football match between these two cities' team, they're worse than English hooligan at their worst)
And as for the english speaking bit : most people under 25 don't have that much difficulty speaking english. Unfortunately, this means that most of the people working in stores don't speak it, not that they don't want to speak it.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Tiara

Ok,

- While I know most of you speak English, you refuse to.
- Everytime I walk into a store and they find out I'm a foreigner they get all cocky and distrusting. Looking at me like I'm a criminal. Wants to make me bash their craniums in.
- On the street when they hear me talk Dutch with my friend they look at us like we're aliens from Mars and refuse to give directions and/or answer any questions. They just outright ignore us.
- At clubs/restaurants/etc... The same thing. Arrogant,offensive and refusing to speak English.

Just a few points. And not just in Paris, I've had exactly the same thing in Marsailles a few years ago. Now, I've never been to the smaller villages so I don't know how people are there but city-French are a huge pain in the ass. I'm just glad I speak French else we'd be lost there.

-english: wrong. We learn basic english at college ( 12-> 16 ), a bit more at Lycée depending on what specialisation you choose. Now, looking around me, I'm really an exception, I know only a handful who could have a chat with an english people. I really don't know where you get the idea that most of us speak english. Most of the 30+ old surely don't speak english at all, since it wasn't a mandatory course back then. I really wonder where you got that assumption.
-what can I say about that? The same went for me when I went to Italia and Spain, I was looked down like I was trash ( some guy in Italy looked at my father and told him "tchi! if you don't speak the local language, what the hell are you doing here?" arrogant Italians -I prefer not to talk about my one trip to London... English people just love us, you see )
-Since there's even less people talking dutch, it's no wonder they won't give you directions.
-Restaurants: I have a hard time believing you, honestly. I've worked in an hotel ( a big one, near the Gare de L'Est, with a restaurant and all ), and 90% of the people who go there are foreigners, since it's stuck between two major railroad stations. I haven't seen any kind of disrespect toward the customers. On a side note, I was also the best employee for speaking in english, by far; it's sad, I know, but that can't be helped. If if you tell me that's an exeption, I'll reply that I live in France and that's not the only hotel/restaurant I've ever seen in my life
Seems to me you go there expecting that... I wanna see how YOU behave when you go to a restaurant, thinking "oh great, those arrogants idiots again". French aren't friendly with people who are not friendly themselves to begin with, that's a fact that I won't deny.

Side note: for Marseilles, it's different. They treat everybody non-marseillais like asses, other frenchs included. Mmh, and Paris people kind of think they're France and the rest of the country is a large colony, but heh... ( I don't like Parisiens much )

edit: typos and various grammar errors.

[Moonsword]

When half the world believes the sterotype, you may have a slightly larger issue at hand than an image problem.

I heard from someone (I believe they were in the service at the time) that had visited France that things seemed to improve once you got outside Paris, though.

[Nico]

Originally posted by beatspete

However, I am a student and had to live in the same flat as a French person last year - and he did come across as pretty arrogant.  Maybee he didnt mean it,[...]

Oh yeah, should reply to that one as well: dispite what I replied to Tiara, there IS also an incredible number of tards in France, no doubt.
Btw, I should point out that I'm pretty different in real life than I am here, so don't judge me on my posts.
I kind of look down on frenchs, but not because of their arrogance or anything, coz that's just made up and stupid. On the other hand, there's more annoying issues in France that, funilly, foreigners could use to mock them up ( seems to be an international sport to make fun of France, heh ) and completly miss...

->so, beatspete: I think he meant it You know, french or not, a guy like that, he just asks for a good slapping

The only reason they still speak it, it because French busienessmen refuse to speak English like the rest of the business world.

That's bull****, Tiara, don't lower yourself by making up such stupid aknowledgements.

Genryu: good point with the PSG/OM thing

[Genryu]

Ain't it ?

[jdjtcagle]

Bah Tiara...
1.  Is there supose to be a image on the first page, because I don't see anything?

2.  This is just as bad as people making fun of you because your not black, and black is the most accepted race in America, or where I live. *shrugs* I don't know about the whole country.
You can't say all people in Paris act that way just because some of them do, even though I think we know your just mentioning the few who do.  But still, it's not really fair to call them all pricks or whatever, but it is fair to give a jackass the finger...

[Corsair]

[Rictor]

Everyone should just move to Canada. In a few years, anyone who is not a foreigner will be looked down upon, as if to say

"Look honey, its an English speakig person. We don't like them very much, do we?. Why don't they get their own country and let us Italians/Germans/Greeks/Russian/Yugoslavs/Koreans/Pakistanis/Chinese/Indians/Portugese/
Hungarians/Japanese/Trinidadians/Iranians/Iraqis/South Africans live in peace"

[Rictor]

Thorn: well, English is the main language for most of Canada, but not in Quebec. If there are more French speakers in a specific area than there are Enlgish speaker, I see no problem with letting them use French as their official language. And its good that Canadians going through school are taught at least one additional language, its what seperates Canadians from the Yanks.

[Nico]

Besides, Quebec french is kind of... odd

[Genryu]

Odd ? More like even French are sometimes wondering what language they're speaking
I still wonder what kind of substances they were on when they were developping the Quebec version of the french language....

[Stealth]

I'm not disagreeing that the French can be pricks when you're an outsider in their country, or at least they were when i was there about six years ago, but look at it this way:  One of my pet peeves, particularly here in Houston, where the Mexican population is growing rapidly... you'll be at Walmart or Costco or wherever, and sometimes people come up to you and speak to you completely in Spanish asking you for something.  when this happens, i usually say "Do you speak English?" even though i'm almost fluent in Spanish.  They always just keep going in Spanish, and in the end i have to resort to speaking Spanish back to them, but it makes me really mad.  There's a guy at the restaurant i work at, who has been in America, with his family (wife and two kids) for 8 years now, and he doesn't speak more than two or three words in English.  He knows how to say "yes" and "no", but he expects you to speak to him in Spanish.  I think that's wrong, because there's no excuse as to why you can't learn at least a BIT of English in those 8 years.  I respect people a lot more that come up to me asking directions or something that at least TRY to speak to me in English, it doesn't matter if they only know a few words, at least if they TRY, i think that makes it a lot better.  And i think the same goes for the French.  when i was there, i agree, if you didn't speak to them in French, if you expected them to speak to you in English, they would usually ignore you, laugh at you, etc.  but if you TRIED to speak to them in French, even if it was broken, and you only knew a few words, they'd help you to the best of their ability.  It is wrong for people to come into their country and expect them to suddenly drop their national language and speak to the foreigners in English, in the foreigners tongue.  I don't speak much French, but when i went there, i memorized phrases, like "Where is the restroom?" and such, and i didn't have much trouble.  The only times i had problems was when i tried speaking to them in English.

Sure i'm not saying it's right, because it's not, you've got to be tolerant of other people and their situations, but you can see where they're coming from.  Overall though, the French were extremely arrogant, because in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the few other European countries i visited, i never had that problem to the same degree as in France.

And you can't even say that they're arrogant to foreigners and tourists just since this "We didn't back America so America's media and society turned on us", because they may have had a point if that's when it started happening, but they didn't, they've been acting like that since as long as i can remember

Also, don't forget that most French citizens speak another language (English) fluently.  That's more than can be said for Americans... if ANYONE expects people to speak their language, it's Americans.  hence why they only speak one language for the most part:  English

[Bobboau]

people who live there and people who are just visiting are two entierly diferent balls of wax.