Of all the stereotypes of Europeans, this one is the most unfair

The guy in the Parisian cheese shop – OK, the fromagerie – greets me with a stream of French that frankly means nothing to me.

I’m terrible with French. I can’t even read the words and say them out loud properly (why so many silent letters?), let alone understand what someone is saying.

The reality is most French – including waiters in Paris – are friendly and helpful.Credit: iStock

“Désolé,” I say, holding my hands out apologetically, ready with my rehearsed lines. “Je ne parle pas français.”

The guy breaks into a grin. “Ha, sorry,” he laughs. “Do you need some help?”

This is the grumpy, rude Parisian. He’s a classic too, this guy, just as grumpy and rude as everyone else I’ve met in the French capital on this trip.

There’s the lady sitting next to me at a restaurant who insists on introducing me to the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen, Monsieur Pierre; the guy in the wine store who slips effortlessly from French to English when he realises I’m struggling with the labels; the Parisian journalist who invites me out for dinner after we’ve only recently met; the waiter I see approach a Dutch couple struggling with phones pointed at their menus and offer, “I can be your Google if you like?”

If you have a problem with people in France, it’s probably your fault.

These people are not, of course, grumpy and rude. That’s the stereotype, which is meant to apply to all of France, though especially to Paris. People in Paris hate speaking English, they despise tourists, they can’t stand people who don’t naturally fit into the ebb and flow of the French capital.

I’m here to tell you, it isn’t true. I’ve often thought this about France as a whole, and I even wrote a column about it a few years ago, though many people told me then that what I wrote was true, except in Paris. In Paris, people will be rude to you.

And yet I’ve just spent several days in the French capital, and I’ve found every single person I have interacted with friendly and charming. All smiles at my truly terrible French. All good humour as people switch to English, or just battle through my attempts at their own language (un grande bier sil vous plait?).

No one rude, no one pushy, no one dismissive. Everyone polite and kind.

It’s funny how this works in Europe. Every country and its people come with an established reputation, with an expectation from visitors thanks to deeply ingrained stereotypes – and plenty of those stereotypes are grossly unfair.

Germans as humourless efficiency bots is unfair (plenty I’ve met have a very sharp, dry sense of humour). Scottish people as dour spendthrifts, also grossly unjust. The English as soap-dodgers with terrible food, also not reasonable.

Some, admittedly, are closer to the truth: Spaniards as bull-slaying afternoon snoozers, Italians as mad-driving lady-botherers, the Irish as Guinness-slaying craic chasers.

But the French as snooty and hostile has always seemed, to me at least, the most unfair. This is a pleasingly friendly country. It’s a pleasure to exist here. Service is pretty good (people are far grumpier across the border in Spain). Those who speak English – yes, even in Paris – are always happy to switch.

This is anecdotal evidence obviously, but it’s only ever going to be that way. And I’m convinced of French friendliness.

I’ve also drawn an important conclusion from it: if you have a problem with people in France, it’s probably your fault.

This is a long-held suspicion. If you find French people unfriendly, maybe you’re giving them reason to be. Maybe the thing about the French is not that they’re rude, it’s that they just don’t react well to perceived rudeness in others.

“The French hate learning other languages,” someone once said to me, knowingly. Oh yeah, as opposed to English speakers? As opposed to the famously polylingual skills of your average Australian? We’re the worst.

But as you would have noticed from my interaction in the fromagerie, I might not be able to speak French, but I try to know enough to say so. In French. This goes a long way towards getting people on side.

I also smile and say “Bonjour!” when I walk into a shop or a bar, and I find people react well to that, too. They smile back. They greet me in return.

I speak far better Spanish than I do French, but across the border in Spain, strangers react to my holas and my como estases like I’ve got something disgusting stuck to my shoe. In France though? They smile. They switch to English if they can. They give you the time of day.

Your expectations in France will likely colour your experiences when you travel there, as they do in so many places. If you wander around the country prepared for rudeness, prepared to fight, that’s probably what you’ll get.

However, if you go in all smiles, with some terrible French phrases at the ready, I’m telling you, you’ll find some of the nicest people around. Even in Paris.