this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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My favourite country to visit would be France, I like the food, I like the language, I like the people, I like the culture in general.
Many people claim the French are rude which is not my experience at all. Maybe because Danes are ruder? π
Au contraire, I've only been met with respect and professionalism when I've been to France.
France is amazing by the diversity of the landscapes you can find there. French people are alright if you get out of big cities, like Paris, Lyon or Marseille.
Source: am French
Hehe, I've been to Paris twice, and to Bordeaux, Montpellier, Hauts de France, and surrounding countryside as well. This year we'll drive to Alsace-Lorraine and visit the Vosges. I've liked every visit π
I mean, some people are rude, that's normal. But overall we've been treated really well no matter where we've been.
I was in Bordeaux with my family for the world cup in 2018, it was a great experience even with thousands of people and us with two toddlers.
Sorry, this comes of as a love letter to France π I promise, I also love visiting other parts of Europe!
That's a nice tour indeed! The Vosges are great for nature, I think it's the last rainforest in France.
Alsace has some of the most beautiful villages in the country, great wine and great food.
Lorraine is a bit plain but you have some pretty spots (pays de Bitche is cool) and loads of history (Verdun, Maginot Line).
A few underrated spots for me are Cantal and Ariège, the first one is a massive dormant stratovolcano and the second one is a pretty wild area (at least in the mountains). They're both great for nature and hikes.
Having just returned from a tour of Alsace, I'd describe the food as more "comical" than "great"
π
I'm so sorry for you... This is what it's supposed to look like:
That looks awful :D Also vaguely obscene
99.9% of this is from US-americans who visit just Paris and speak very loud US-english to everyone. The Parisians are not as nice as the rest of France and no one appreciates an ignorant tourist speaking loud US-english into one's face as if it were a walmart in Texas or something.
In general the French are nice people.
I think it's a power-thing. Some Americans follow the 'customer is always right' thinking and expect staff to be servile. But my experience in Europe is that when you interact with a waiter or a shop assistant you're interacting with an equal who happens to be serving you at that moment, and who also expects a certain something from you.
I still remember a waiter who was very disappointed in me because I didn't know which wine I wanted to have with my fish π Sorry, Danes don't know much about wine. Anyway, the only time I've encountered rude staff was in Belgium and only once or twice - and probably just because we seemed impatient.
My impression is that things have changed in the last 20 years or so. These days, people will not look at you like you're some disgusting bug if you speak to them in English. Haven't really been there a lot, though.
I found the Danes to be direct but nice.
French on the other hand can be nice on the front, and then stab you in the back. Also i have made the experience that many of them are increadibly racist and when they travel assume a colonial attitude. I'll never travel again with French people for that matter.
That's incredibly generalizing. You seem to have had the misfortune of traveling with some assholes, that doesn't mean all or even most of us have that kind of behaviour.
Well it was also "aided" by the experience of a friend, who is a french citizen, but living in Germany. When he visited a family member in France, some french teenagers harassed and spit on them, because there was an arab among their group. When he told the people of his group to properly make a scene, they told him not to bother as this is just normal in France. On the same voyage this friend was almost killed on the highway as a french driver tried to get him to steer off the asphalt by breaking in front of him and making moves of steering into him from the side repeatedly.
So within just a few weeks independantly and literally across the world, we experienced numerous occasions of french people being incredibly racist, showing an extreme sense of self entitlement and superiority, while not hesitating from deadly violence. Now at some farmers protest someone was killed and multiple people seriously injured too.
I do not want to claim that this is representative of every french person or person living in France. But it seems to be representative of an underlying and structural problem in franch society and culture. Therefore the positive experience that i replied to, should equally not be expected as a general sentiment in France.
Given that i am from Germany i also want to preemptivel warn everyone, that Germany as a whole is an incredibly racist country and racism has had a huge increase even more in the past few months. In this regard there seems to be many more similiarities between French and Germans than either people like to admit to. Unfortunately these similiarities are all not on the good side of behaviours and cultures.