As an Aussie who has lived in France, here's the worst mistake you can make in a French cafe

Year after year, hordes of oblivious tourists get slapped with an extra fee every time they sit down in a French cafe, without even knowing it. Here's how you can stop it happening to you. 

Don't sit down at a table at a cafe in France, if you don't want to get slapped with a hidden fee

Oh hey there. Did you want to sit down? I bet you really want to sit down. Well, sorry, but I have bad news for you. 

If you like your coffee quick and your bills reasonable: never sit down in a French cafe. Now, I know what you're thinking. 

"I always see people sitting down in French cafes!"

"I want to look like Emily in Paris!"

"How else am I going to drink my coffee!?"

"What about terrace culture?"

Think you should sit at a table at a cafe in France? Think again

Well, I'm here to say, as someone who lived in France for six months, don't do it. 

Why? Well, there's a tiered system in France. A cafe apartheid. A duality of service. A dividing line between tourists and locals. 

If you want to sneak into the latter category, and pay a little less for your cafe au lait, you had better not order and then go and sit down at a table. 

Want to pay less? Don't do this

Why? I'll let Amaury Treguer, a Frenchman who used to live in Paris (now a photographer who lives in Sydney, Australia), take it from here. 

"You pay cheaper when you have it at the counter - two prices, one for the counter  - where you skoll it - and one for if you go and sit at a table."

"The guy literally pours it, gives it to you; you smash it and f*ck off." 

Sitting at a table is also where those pesky extra charges for things like water sneak in

As for how to join this elusive club, Amaury says subtlety is key: "They don’t really ask you [if you want to have it at the counter or on a table], people know, they arrive at the cafe and you arrive literally at the counter and say I want an espresso, it’s such a thing."

"They also spot tourists like that, [if you're not a tourist] you arrive at your counter, you have your espresso and you leave."

Beyond that, Amaury explains, in France there is not so much a culture of coffee shops, it’s bars where most people will get their caffeine fix. So if you go to order a coffee early in the morning, don't be surprised to see people drinking alcohol around you. 

There's a blurry line between cafes and bars in France

"Some people will be on the booze as early as seven or eight in the morning, as soon as they open, there’s no restrictions - you can drink all day long, any time of the day without all the license laws we have here [in Australia], you can literally have your cafe next to someone who is drinking alcohol."

He also tells us that takeaway coffee, though it is becoming more common thanks to Starbucks, is still much less common in France than it is in Australia: "When I lived in France, you used to go to a cafe - if you had time - to grab a coffee, otherwise you just took a coffee from the office or a coffee from home (not takeaway - you had it there, then left)." 

Takeaway coffee in France is not cool

He also counsels (not health wise; aesthetically) that if you want to look French, don't order a big cappuccino or latte, instead "have an espresso or long black with a ciggie and newspaper."

Got that? Good. Now here are five more rules to keep you on the straight and narrow in France. 

5 rules for visiting a French cafe or bakery

1. Don't murder a croissant

Picture: @parisiansnobiety (via Instagram)

Even worse than this is if you butter a croissant that's already made of butter. Or as Instagram user and Paris local @juliearnault puts it: "Diabetes and cholesterol the American way." Really, the only thing you can do worse than this in France is drink wine from a non wine glass (which to French people signals you have given up on life).

2. Don't order takeaway

We all need to do our part to keep The Starbucks Effect at bay.

3. Don't eat the end of a baguette before you get home

Social shaming in 3, 2, 1... Picture: @parisiansnobiety (via Instagram)

Amaury says this is a rule, albeit one he chooses to ignore, explaining, "It's acceptable [in the sense that] I do it every day, but [technically] unacceptable to eat before you get home."

He says you are supposed to wait until you get home before cutting it into pieces, and "it's the hardest thing ever when you’ve got a hot baguette in your hands."

See also: 16 things to remember when visiting France

As many tourists and expats have discovered, if you ignore this rule, social shaming may follow (as Instagram account @parisiansobiety brilliantly depicts in this sketch).

4. Learn the difference between un and une

Don't be like me, every day at La Rochelle's Boulangerie L'Atelier de Valerie, who would always order deux baguettes, because I could never remember whether it was un or une...

5. Don't wear athleisure... or a beret

You can do what you want, really. But if you do this, you'll stick out like a sore thumb.

Originally published as As an Aussie who has lived in France, here's the worst mistake you can make in a French cafe