The truth behind French stereotypes
Debunking everything from surly waiters to France’s lousy music
It’s Napoleon’s birthday — what better time to examine the truth behind the most persistent French clichés? We sort the facts from the fiction.
The waiters are rude
French waiters are surly, and this is a bad thing. As recently as June last year, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius claimed that France was suffering from a “welcome deficit” which meant overseas visitors perceived the country as unfriendly. Including its waiters. “Even City Hall is telling us to be more smiley,” Bernard Migneau, head waiter at Paris bistro Le Petit Machon told The Wall Street Journal. “We are all experiencing real pressure from L’Office de Tourisme to be cheerier and chattier — more American. But it isn’t going to happen tomorrow.”
OK, so French waiters can be a little cold-shouldered. But what would you prefer? A serious professional who gets your order right at the first time of asking. Or the eternally cheery American version who asks you “how your soup is tonight” every three minutes and asks if “there’s anything else I can do for you” every six. Yes. Be quiet.
Anthony Peregrine, our France expert, has also spoken frequently on the matter. “I never really bought the idea of snooty French waiters,” he wrote only last month. “Over decades in France, I’ve come across remarkably few (and, as an Englishman, can out-snoot them effortlessly). The misconception arises because French waiters are not, as in Britain, youths filling in time until their real lives begin. They are professionals pursuing a profession considered worthy of respect. This is evident in the aprons, bow-ties and ages of the practitioners. That’s why French service outstrips our own. These fellows (they are generally men) can take an order for 15 different drinks, deliver them on one tray, shout at a passing taxi, give directions to the Centre Pompidou and still get the change right.”
All French men are suave, rakish fops who smoke very thin cigarettes while quoting Baudelaire, reciting Sartre by heart, and being very, very sensitive indeed.
Meet Sebastian Chabal, the brutish, bearded number eight who won 62 rugby union caps for France, or Johann Duhaupas, one of Europe’s top heavyweight boxers. He has, admittedly, lost a couple of fights recently — but still, do you want to ask him if he’s sensitive?
They all wear hooped shirts, berets and carry garlic and onions around their neck
The cliché:
The reality:
See above.
Zut alors! Is that a Frenchman I see cycling toward me? Actually, this caricature of the French male is down to a few so-called “Onion Johnnies” who used to pedal round Britain selling Roscoff onions. Hardly representa- tive of an entire nation …
French cheese is stinky
French cheeses are soft, pungent affairs like camembert and brie.
The most commonly made and popular cheese in France is comté — a hard lump of milk made in the easterly Franche-Comté region. Depending on your personal opinion and love of flavour, it tastes of chalk, paper or the sweetest type of nothing at all.
They are no good in a fight
French soldiers rarely put up a fight and would rather drink rosé in the sun.
French armies were the scourge of Europe for most of the 17th century, when Louis XIV knew quite a few things about winning (and losing a few) battles — and then came the 18th and 19th centuries, and that chap Napoleon.
They are ungrateful
The allies’ efforts during the Second World War to liberate France has been swept under the carpet.
This fallacy about the French attitude toward British and American efforts in the World Wars is quickly exposed. Anyone visiting the excellent Memorial Museum in Caen, or the Historial at Peronne realises it — as do those frequenting the famous Gondree Café, the first building to be liberated by the allies in France toward the end of the Second World War.
Their music is two dimensional
French music starts with Edith Piaf and ends with Serge Gainsbourg.
You may have heard of Daft Punk, whose hit Get Lucky went top 10 in 32 countries in 2013. They dress like robots. Of course they do.
There’s only one place for sparkling wine
Good Gallic sparkling wine only comes from the Champagne region.
You can find fine bottles of golden French fizziness far beyond Reims and its surrounding vineyards. Cremant d’Alsace can be superb. So can Saumur Mousseaux.
The south is full of rich people
The south of France is all sunbathers and rich folk in cocktail dresses.
Go to Marseille. It’s a grubby, shabby, fascinating city where the narrow streets of the gentrifying Le Panier district are the sud de France at its most evocative.
The Cote d’Azur is all concrete
A beautiful stretch of coastline has been spoiled by overzealous development.
Of course there are builtup bits, and some aren’t easy on the eye — what would you expect of some of Europe’s loveliest coastline? But places such as Corniches des Maures and Ile de Porquerolles are the Riviera as it used to be.
Montmartre is so bohemian
Montmartre and Pigalle are Paris at their most arty and bohemian.
Well they are if you want over-priced tourist-trap restaurants and a selfie hotspot like the Moulin Rouge — which was really cool when it was founded in 1899, but has rather lost its soul behind all the tour buses parked outside. Go to the Marais instead.
The French say “ooh lá lá” a lot
They say it constantly, and it’s usually prompted by seeing something smutty.
Well, yes they do say it a fair bit, but not quite the way many rosbif think. Rather than saying it when confronted with a supposedly naughty scene, as in one of Paris’s tired cabaret shows, the phrase indicates the speaker is impressed. It’s an expression you might hear from those witnessing something cultured on a football pitch, or maybe from those sampling a particularly tasty morsel of cheese.
Their football is flamboyant
French footballers are swaggering, flamboyant geniuses who never put a foot wrong. Why, the won the World Cup as recently as 1998. They had Zinedine Zidane.
Yes, Les Bleus won the 1998 World Cup. Their defence of it, in Japan and South Korea, in 2002, was appalling — knocked out in the group stages after managing one draw and two defeats from three games. For good measure, they repeated this trick at the 2010 tournament in South Africa. Not so formidable. OK, so they got to the final at last year’s Euros, but that was on home soil ...
Frenchmen are all suave
French women are all beautiful
French women are beautiful, elegant goddesses, a la Brigitte Bardot.
Actually, this one works. As proved by Marion Cotillard. And Melanie Laurent. And Eva Green ...