When I moved to France, I had no image of what it would be like, no wildly romantic notions of France or Paris. In fact, I fell in love with Paris slowly. I kind of prefer it that way.
But like anything — or anyone — you love, there are those irksome characteristics, those things that you just can’t stand. As a bit of a counterpoint to my previous post about things I like about France, here are ten things I really don’t like about the place I’ve chosen — for better or for worse — to call home.
Customer service here sucks. Royally.
I actually am stealing this one from a fellow tour guide, but working in a service industry, you definitely notice it.
Two cases in point.
This summer, the Country Boy and I spent an afternoon in Cambridge. After wandering around Harvard, we decided we could do with an iced coffee and went to Peet’s. We placed our orders, and went to the other counter to wait. TCB had ordered an iced latte; I had an iced black coffee. He received his order. I kept waiting.
“I think they forgot you,” he said, but after living many years with my father, who likes to jump down service professionals’ throats, I decided to wait an extra minute before saying anything. The girl behind us in the line got whatever Peet’s’ version of a Frappuccino is. I continued to wait.
The man making the beverages looked at me. “Are you waiting for something?”
“Yes, an iced coffee.”
And with that, not only did he make my drink, apologizing profusely, and hand it to me, he also handed me a card towards a free beverage in any Peet’s (which I used in Maryland).
TCB was astounded. Frankly, so was I. That just doesn’t happen in France.
In Paris, about 8 years ago, my mother and a family friend came to stay at my apartment. While I was at school, they very kindly went to the Galeries Lafayette and bought me an assortment of bedding. Some of the bedding was mildly superfluous, because I was living in a furnished apartment that already had superfluous bedding. I went to return said bedding to the same store from whence it came. It took three hours, and I think I ended up getting a reimbursement for a third of what was paid. And I got yelled at because I was standing in the way, i.e. in the store.
These stories are illustrative, and they are not the only stories of their kind. There is less of “customer is always right” principle here, and while it doesn’t bother me in some circumstances, like in restaurants, I would like to be able to call customer service and get some kind of service instead of being condescended to.
I do not like general lack of ambition here.
This is a big one, deserving of an essay all on its own, but I’ll try to be succinct in this case.
America is a country where people are always striving. France is a country where people want to be. Just be. Relax. Enjoy. Not that that’s a bad thing… but…
In America, people are constantly talking about their dreams. Their ambitions. Their plans and projects. Everyone is writing a screenplay, starting a business, running a marathon, taking a class. In France, people talk about where they’re going to go on vacation. It’s not that one is bad and the other is good. The French know how to enjoy themselves in a way that I, personally, cannot. I’m incapable of sitting still for as long as most people I’ve met here, and I do recognize that that’s a trait of the French that I could probably stand to learn a thing or two about.
But I’ll admit: I miss that ambition, that drive surrounding me, making me want to push myself even harder. As an American in France, I find, I either need to seek out other expats or just push myself twice as hard.
In France, whenever you first meet someone, there is a “wall.”
At first it’s subtle, the difference between smiling at the person waiting with you for the bus or ignoring them. Thanking someone for a compliment or rushing into a store because a stranger talking to you has terrified you.
But then it gets a bit more real.
You meet people at parties, once, twice, three times, and still you feel a distance. You don’t feel like you could call them to invite them to a party, even if every time you meet them at a party, you have a great time, and you know that they’re not calling you either.
It’s really, really hard to get to know people here.
Of course, this does have its benefits. Once you break down the “wall,” you have a real friend, not just an acquaintance or a drinking buddy. People select their friends over a period of long study, not after one great night out. But depending on how long it takes for you to break down the wall, France can be a very lonely place.
 This is a fairly personal one that won’t ring true with everyone, but it’s a truth for me, so I needed it on the list. I don’t like the fact that in France, there is very little widespread faith or spirituality. I’m not saying I think that there should be more organized religion in France — far from it. I just think that as a country that is so very secular, there is no place, culturally, for even the idea of a higher power. The higher power doesn’t even really need to be a religious one; I’ve met very few French people comfortable with sentiments like, “The universe knows what it’s doing,” “It’s destiny,” “Someone up there is looking out for me.” And as another American expat friend pointed out, explaining Thanksgiving here is particularly difficult because the French have a hard time thanking an unnamed entity, as in the tradition of going around and saying what you’re thankful for, without thanking a person or assuming that the unnamed entity is, in fact, the capital G Christian God. There are definitely problems with widespread Christianity pervading American culture, and that’s another topic for another time. I just don’t see the harm in being thankful or recognizing that not everything is in the control of the self, that some things might be up to God or the Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky or the Universe, even if you don’t know what form that entity really takes. 
In France, the ability to say “no” is an expression of one’s power. If you find yourself facing a fonctionnaire in French, someone who works in the Great Bureaucracy, you’ll find that, more often than not, the answer to your initial question will be, “No.” It’s a way for the person behind the desk to show you who’s holding the reins here — you aren’t going to get done what you want to unless it pleases M or Mme Le/La Fonctionnaire. I find that the opposite is true in America; people show their power by their ability to say yes. It’s in those little glances and the “Let me see what I can do.” The person behind the desk is still just that — a person. The rules might not allow for what you want, but they’re going to bend them for you, because they can. It’s a nuance in the expression of power, but it’s the difference that makes day-to-day tasks like getting a driver’s license or a visa or an official birth certificate either hellish or an unimportant event of your lunch break.
I have a favorite story that I tell fairly often about a little old lady I saw once on a bus admonish a young mademoiselle talking very loudly on her cell phone about some party.
“Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,” my favorite old lady ever said. “We live in a society. Not everyone wants to hear your phone call.”
God bless little old ladies who say what no one else dares to.
That being said, there is something that I find a bit irksome about the idea that we are owed certain things because we live in a society. It’s a line that wavers for me pretty much daily. It’s not that I think certain things should not be available to people living in a society — things like education and healthcare. But then there are people who complain about not having enough unemployment when they’re clearly able to work but don’t want to, or people who take too much advantage of free healthcare just because they have a headache or don’t feel like going to work, and that bothers me.
Yes, we live in a society. Yes, that means free healthcare and free education. But they’re still services, and they don’t come out of nowhere. I feel that there is very little respect for these services, especially amongst French people my age, and coming from a place where those services were not widely available, I wish they were respected a bit more. I wish that people thought more often about the strides that had to be taken and the sacrifices that have to me made in order for these societal rights to be available to the general public.
Quite a bit of noise is being made about the education system in France lately, and I’m one of the people making (a very small amount of) noise. I’ve been making noise for a while. You see, I do not like the way that things are taught in France.
It took me a very long time to be able to articulate what I don’t like about the education system here, and even now, I’m not sure how clear this is going to be, but here goes: I think that the purpose of the education of children from age 5 to age 10 should be to make them love learning. Yes, they need to learn how to spell and do basic addition, but other than that, just take a child’s natural curiosity and run with it! I can’t see any reason that anyone would want to go about it in any way other than that.
Unfortunately, the French do. The French school system seeks to be as egalitarian as possible, and in doing so gives all children a route education that doesn’t work for a large portion of the students. That means that there are a few students who naturally do well, a few students who work furiously at home because they’re afraid of failure, and a lot of students who end up defeatist and frustrated and left behind by the system.
Yes, it’s free. Yes, as someone who had the kind of education that encourages curiosity as a child, my Master’s degree worked out for me. But no, I don’t like it, and I would have a very hard time enrolling a child in a French school.
In France, a country that seems to know how to make every single portion of a pig delicious — there’s even a saying, “Tout est bon dans le cochon.” Everything in a pig is delicious — the lack of good bacon is somewhat alarming. I bring it back from America in my suitcase and stash it in the freezer for emergencies. Yes, bacon emergencies exist.
While this is beginning to change, the lack of delicious beer in France was confirmed by my recent trip to the States. Come on guys. England is right there. Get your act together.
And lastly, despite the lack of delicious bacon and delicious beer, it’s decidedly difficult to live a healthy lifestyle in France.
By this, I mean several things.
Firstly, I find that there is less of a culture of outdoorsiness here. It’s harder to find someone who wants to go hiking on a Sunday or a gym buddy here than it is in the States.
I also mean that food is an essential part of the culture here, which is all well and good until you decide you want to lose five pounds. You can’t skip lunch or have a light lunch at your desk, because everyone is going out for lunch. You can’t pick a healthier choice on a menu, because if you ask for sauce on the side, you’ll be laughed out of the restaurant. And if you find yourself eating with a more traditional French family, you’re still going to find that, more often than not, you’re going to be eating a lot of meat, a good amount of starch, and very little vegetable. And while that’s very tasty, that’s just not how I eat most days.
Charred Tomato, White Anchovy and Chimichurri Tartine
serves 1 as a main or 3 as an apéritif (which is another thing I like about France)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 bunch parsley
3-4 mint leaves or 1/2 bunch cilantro (I prefer the latter but TCB can’t stand it)
2 tbsp. white vinegar
flaked salt
5 small tomatoes, halved
1 drizzle olive oil
6 white anchovies
3 slices good bread (I used Poilane)
2 ounces goat cheese
Finely chop the parsley and mint together. Add the olive oil and the vinegar and toss. Season with flaked salt and set aside.
Heat a nonstick pan over high heat. Drizzle the cut tomatoes with olive oil and place them, cut-side down, into the pan. Cook without moving for 5 minutes, until charred. Remove and set aside, face up.
Toast the bread and spread with goat cheese. Top with the tomatoes and anchovies. Serve with a dollop of chimichurri, or serve the chimichurri on the side, if you’re into sauce on the side. I won’t shame you for it.