When I was in England, I wrote a blog post about Britishisms and things I’d noticed that were kind of specific to British culture. Now that I’m over in France, I thought I would do the same thing! Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think negatively about the French culture at all (or at least, not about everything), but I do find it fascinating to examine differences in culture, and in day-to-day life. Enjoy!

• Long(er) meals

At the schools where I work, the students (and myself) get an hour and a half for lunch. This includes recess and time for eating for the kids, but in the US, it seems like you’re lucky if you get half an hour to eat. Although this means that the lunch hour can sometimes drag on if you have no one to talk to or nowhere else to go, it means that you have time to decompress and prepare yourself for the afternoon. Not to mention the fact that you don’t feel rushed to inhale your food (so I could actually prepare decent lunches for myself instead of just a small sandwich because that’s all I could eat in the time I had – although that it what I eat because who can resist a good lunch time sandwich?). The students also get much more balanced, and healthier lunches in the cafeteria, and the menus sometimes include things you’d never see in a US elementary school (one prime example would be rabbit for lunch). The best thing is that it’s not just lunches. If you go out to dinner, you’re not rushed to pay your bill after they clear your place. You can chat, hang out, and be relaxed until you’re ready to pay and leave. The French take eating very seriously.

• Chip flavors

Okay, I’m not sure if this is a super “frenchism” but I got a kick out of it anyway so, I’m using it. Literally my first day in Angers, my mom and I went to Monoprix to suss out the goods, and to see what I would have access to grocery wise. We wandered around this fairly big store and somehow ended up in the chip aisle. After glancing haphazardly through the titles, my eyes fell upon a bag with a cheeseburger flavor. That was quite the double-take. From there, there was roasted chicken, pickles and mustard, and my all time favorite: ham and cranberry. I’m not sure if this is a national thing, but those are pretty daring flavors. Here I was thinking prawn cocktail in England was adventurous!

• Timeliness (and its almost non-existence)

Within my time here, it has come to my attention that if you want anything done, you should’ve asked for it a week before you needed it done. Part of this is the bureaucracy, but part of it is also just a “we’ll get to it when we get to it” kind of attitude, which is nice sometimes, but not so nice when your toilet is running and you’re told it could be a week before someone looks at it (I realize this could be universal, but it’s the manner in which you’re told you’ll have to wait that really adds the oomph to this frenchism). Not to mention, you seem to need appointments for everything (for instance, for opening a bank account) and heaven forbid you be able to do something the day you planned on getting it done! One might even say they have a bit of a laissez-faire attitude towards life, and you can definitely see where that saying originated.

• Stores aren’t open all the time

One of the first days I was here, my mother and I made the mistake of waiting until 3pm to try and find lunch. Much to our surprise, almost every place was closed. Many eateries close at 2pm, and don’t reopen until dinner time, around 7pm. Because of this, most places (including banks and other offices) close from 12 until 1:30/2pm to make sure that everyone can get food if they want. As aforementioned, the French take their lunch break seriously.  Additionally, very little is open on Sundays. That means your options are limited for eating out, the grocery stores close earlier (if they’re even open at all), and the streets are pretty empty throughout the day. It’s fine to navigate if you’re aware of the closures, but not great if they catch you off guard. This also means that the places that ARE open on Sundays are often packed, and have long lines because of this. It can also make Sundays quite dull since there isn’t much to do. Banks are also always closed on Sunday, and many aren’t open on Monday so you better hope you don’t have any banking emergencies over the weekend (honestly not that big of a deal unless you want to do something with a person because ATMs are open 24/7). Peep this funny comic another assistant shared on Facebook to illustrate the struggle: 

• BREAD

I’m pretty sure the French eat bread, usually baguettes, with every meal. It’s a solid staple and I appreciate a culture that doesn’t shy away from its carbs. One fairly true stereotype of the French is the number of people who do, in fact, walk around carrying a baguette from the shops. It makes you feel slightly more French when you walk around wielding a massive loaf of bread in your arms.

• Vous vs. Tu

In French, you address people differently based on their age, status, or position relative to you (formality is taken very seriously in this language). Anyone older than you, or superior to you is addressed using a “vous,” while your friends and those younger can be called “tu.” They have aptly named this se vouvoyer and se tutoyer. It’s always a question when meeting a new person whether it’s a vous or a tu situation, so to be safe, always go with the vous. Half of the teachers with whom I work have been super chill about us tutoying each other, but the others haven’t said a word, and I’m not about to rock the boat that is French grammar. Ironically, you get in trouble for not vousvoying when you should, but the teachers have also corrected me when I accidentally use vous instead of tu with them as well!

• Never-ending paperwork

One thing I didn’t necessarily expect was how bureaucratic France is, and the sheer volume of copies and signatures they require for even the tiniest little thing. It feels like for any little thing, you’re going to need your birth certificate, bank information, photocopy of your passport, and your work contract, along with potentially random other tidbits. On top of that, once you’ve submitted any given application, you’ll then have to wait for approval, you’ll get a letter telling you you’ve been approved, then another letter with whatever it is you originally wanted, and then another letter outlining the details of what you’ve received. I had to sign three copies of my work contract, and when setting up a bank account, had to initial all 10ish pages of the document outlining everything. I think there are a lot of trees dying due to France’s penchant love for requiring literal mounds of paperwork for everything. Not to mention, you’re told to keep your pay stubs for the rest of your life, so honestly, I can see how it’s a bit of a thing here. To further back up the length of time things take, I received my November paystub in MARCH… you can imagine the strength of my eye roll when I opened that envelope.

• Striking

Faire la grève could potentially be considered a national pastime. The French are very proud of their allotted hours for the work week, how many vacation days they get, their right to public transportation, and many other things, to the point that when one of those rights is infringed upon in the slightest fashion, the unions might announce a strike. Since moving here, there has already been a national strike (which didn’t impact me specifically but some teachers at other schools went on strike, and transportation was a little delayed), two strikes where my school(s) for the day was closed the entire day, and some smaller strikes on the bus services, which can lead to minor delays or no busses running on certain lines, and various other “social moments” that occur. (Don’t get me started on the gilets jaunes, because that’s just a whole other can of beans)

• Tea with no milk

At my orientation for work, the woman in charge told us we were going to break for tea and coffee. I saw a box of English Breakfast tea, and promptly got very excited as for various reasons, I hadn’t had any tea since I arrived in France. I poured myself a nice cup (in a plastic cup), and looked around for the milk. We all searched around the room, in the fridge, and asked about it, only to be told that the French don’t take their tea with milk (cue the gasps). I thought this was just an isolated incident, but alas, I’ve seen it many more times in my schools, on essentially a daily basis! How the French can make such beautiful coffee and wine, and yet still drink tea without milk is completely beyond me.

• Split classrooms

This is specific to the French education system but it isn’t a rare occurrence to have at least one (if not more) classroom that is made up of multiple grades in a school. The smaller of my two schools only has three classrooms and all three of them are split grades. The theory behind this practice is that it allows students to learn empathy and how to work with students either ahead or behind them, while also potentially pushing them to learn a little more than they would if they weren’t in a split class. Sometimes this is done, however because of size, resources, and the number of teachers available at any given school.

• Scarves

I swear, in France, a scarf is the most important, and necessary accessory for any given day, regardless of the weather. In my first month in Angers, there were several low-to-high 70s days, and you’d walk around seeing people wearing heavy coats and bundled up in scarves! It’s like the scarf simultaneously keeps them warm AND keeps them from getting too hot! They also have this way of tying their scarves that I feel like unless you’re French, you can’t replicate, and I would like to be let in on that secret, please.

• Non-refrigerated milk

You can still find milk in the refrigerated section, but if you go to larger supermarkets, there’s also milk you can buy on the shelves. You refrigerate it after opening, but seeing milk sitting on a shelf at room temperature threw me for a loop the first time I saw it. Plus, it expires much more quickly it seems than the ones that come straight out of the refrigerator. (Related side note: some of the yogurts have fromage blanc, i.e. white cheese written on their labels, but I have been assured that the yogurt does not, in fact, contain any cheese.)

• AZERTY keyboards

It’s a minor thing, but typing with a keyboard that uses the same letters as English, but puts them in a different order is beyond confusing to my touch typing brain. Not to mention, French has accents, so those characters live with the numbers at the top of the keyboard EXCEPT they have priority over the numbers so you have to press the ALT key plus the number key in order to get the number. Don’t even get me started on punctuation as well because some keys have THREE characters so there are three different ways to achieve three different characters and honestly sometimes, I just spell the words wrong and hope for autocorrect. Sometimes I’ll even start typing incorrectly on my laptop after a day of having used a French computer… Just take a look if you don’t believe me:

• MORE PAPERWORK

Did I mention the paperwork issue already? I did? Funny, because that’s exactly what the bureaucratic situation is like in France because you think you’ve done something already and know all about it, and then NOPE, you’ve got to do it all over again but this time with different information… plus signing it, submitting it by mail, along with a pdf copy submitted online, and just for kicks, you’ll have to email it along with an additional copy because vive la France. I’m already dreading leaving if only because I have to write a properly worded letter to cancel my phone plan, close my bank account, cancel my housing assistance, and terminate my rent agreement… because we love killing trees here, and making things more difficult than they need to be!

• Bonjour

Even though saying hello to each other isn’t something that is specific to France, it seems like the French take a certain type of pride in uttering bonjour to their colleagues and friends (and depending on where in the region/country you are, this can be applied to crossing a random human on a walk in the park, or on the street). All the teachers with whom I work make a point of saying bonjour to me when they first see me, and I’ve frequently heard teachers say to other teachers “I haven’t said hello to you today yet, have I” as if it were sacrilege to have not greeted your coworkers in the morning. Not only this, but if they happen to have said hello to each other already, they will proceed to say rebonjour… the French have a word specifically for saying hello to one another again, and I quite enjoy the novelty of it. Not to mention, they take saying hello so seriously, that it’s essentially a routine that every interaction must begin with bonjour regardless of where, when, and with whom, and they take offense if you skip that little introduction in your interaction. I’ve frequently asked people in shops, or at the train station for assistance, and gotten their attention by saying “excuse me” and proceeding to ask my question, only to get a look of disdain in return as they aggressively look at me in order to say bonjour, to make the point that I forgot that pivotal word. (I once overheard a customer at a smaller supermarket get mad at the person behind the cash register once because he “walked in and nobody said hello” to him after he had said the requisite bonjour, so it’s a thing with strangers as well).

• Nonexistent public restrooms

This seems to be a European thing in general, but France really doesn’t buy into having restrooms accessible to the general public (and if they do, they probably won’t be free). Going out, or traveling somewhere can become an endeavor of planning, and you always have to be prepared to potentially have to shell out some coins for the privilege to pee (Shout out to you if you understand the Urinetown reference there…)

• La Bise

When you greet someone in a friendly setting, this can sometimes prompt the act of la bise, where you greet the other person with a kiss (it’s really a cheek-to-cheek sort of action) on each cheek (which one starts still baffles me). It’s not something that I’ve had to do frequently, but I’ve definitely had the awkward start with some people of the whole “should I, or shouldn’t I” type thing when it comes to the whole ordeal. It can certainly be disconcerting if you’re not expecting it, and perhaps a little awkward at first, but it’s definitely part of the custom. I’ve seen teenagers partake in it while greeting each other on the bus in the morning, so a sure fire way to pretend you’re wholly French, is to use la bise as a greeting (when it’s appropriate, of course)!

• Lack of self checkouts

This is kind of an odd one, but in most of the supermarkets where I shop, there isn’t an option for self-checkout, meaning you have to wait in a line with everyone else (there are never enough lines), and then check out that way. This always massively stresses me out because there aren’t people helping bag the groceries (which isn’t odd within itself, necessarily), so you have to frantically bag as the cashier scans the items, but sometimes it isn’t in the right order so you end up shoving things into your bag so rapidly so that you can get out of there before the next person starts coming through. The one store where there is a quasi self check-out option calls itself “express” so I always get people giving me a slight side-eye as I rock up with my rolling basket, even though I’m quick, and I’m not actually buying that many things. I miss having the “15 items or fewer” aisles, as well as the plentiful number of checkout lanes during peak business hours.