The victim, a middle-aged lady, bustled into the shop, already rifling through her handbag for her purse. Probably in a rush to get home to give her kids their lunch.
‘Un litre de lait frais demi-écrémé, s’il vous plaît,’ she said. A bottle of semi-skimmed milk.
The male co-owner exchanged a look with his wife, who raised her eyebrows in sympathy. ‘Bonjour,’ he said to the woman.
‘Un litre de lait frais demi-écrémé, s’il vous plaît,’ she repeated, getting out her cash.
‘Bonjour,’ the owner repeated, a little louder this time.
‘Je voudrais juste un litre de lait,’ she said, changing tack and still not fully realizing that there was a problem. She was explaining that she only wanted milk, and was not splurging on the expensive cheeses, because cheese-shop owners sometimes think that it is beneath their dignity to sell unfermented dairy products, especially semi-skimmed ones.
‘Don’t you ever wish people a good day, Madame?’ the cheese seller asked. Subtext: I am not a servant, I am a noble purveyor of fine foods, I have a house in the country and a cleaning lady who irons my overalls, so you’re not getting your piffling bottle of milk until you say hello.
‘Oh, sorry, yes, of course, bonjour,’ the woman said, blushing and apologizing. She looked expectantly across at the cheese seller. She was still in a hurry, still hoping to buy some milk and get back home before the weekend was over.
‘Bonjour, Madame,’ the cheese man said. ‘What would you like?’
The customer had to repeat her request for a bottle of milk, and then wait while the shopkeeper counted out her change and put the plastic bottle in a bag, ‘because we like to treat our customers comme il faut’. He saw absolutely no contradiction between what he was doing and what he was saying.
At last the woman was allowed to leave the shop, with a loud ‘au revoir’ from both husband and wife ringing in her reddened ears.
I really should have walked out, but I’d been sent on a last-minute errand to get the cheese for a lunch party, so I meekly made my selection, paid, and wished them a polite ‘bonne journée’.
By the way, I must emphasize a key aspect of the previous scene – it was a clash between two French people. We non-French people often think that the French are trying to insult us because we’re foreign, but it’s not true. They’re like that with each other, too.
Coming Through, with a Pout
The French are experts with their elbows. Sometimes, walking along a pavement or trying to shop in a crowded supermarket, you might think they were all educated at an American football university. However, they must be the only people on earth capable of shoving you unceremoniously out of the way with perfect manners. And all because of one word: pardon. In theory, you are meant to say ‘pardon’ (pronounced ‘pardo’, ending with a pout) before shoving anyone or instead of doing so, but in practice you say it as you shove.
In Paris, the pavements can get very narrow, and are often partially blocked by empty rubbish bins and the little metal posts that physically prevent drivers from parking on the pavement (it’s the only way to stop them, short of minefields). Anyway, you often have to weave in and out of obstacles as you walk. This may involve waiting while someone else squeezes between, say, a wheelie bin and a shop window. In which case, they’re supposed to, and often do, say ‘pardon’. Some people, though, simply blunder forwards mumbling ‘pardon, pardon’ for form’s sake and not worrying if they have to crush a few toes or force someone out into the road. They’ve respected the convention, so everything is all right.
This is not a totally risk-free strategy. An overt blunderer might come up against someone who retaliates with a scathing reminder of the need to do things comme il faut. A person who has been shoved, or, if they are very good at retaliation, who is about to be shoved, may express their disapproval with another key word: franchement. This, pronounced ‘frONsh-ma’, is a lot like the English ‘honestly’, but is usually said with a look of such crushing scorn – shared if possible with everyone else within ten yards – that you’re transported back to the seventeenth century, and it feels as if someone has just farted in the presence of the Sun King. Franchement, such a person does not belong in Paris. They should be banished to some barbarous wilderness like Brittany or America . . .
To Kiss or Not to Kiss?
The range of polite French words and gestures is huge. At the Parisian company where I used to work, a trip down to the coffee machines on the ground floor was more socially complex than taking tea with a Samurai.
If you encountered someone in the corridor or the lift, first of all you had to decide whether you’d seen them before.
If you hadn’t, you would say ‘bonjour’ anyway, because France is a polite country. If you had seen them before, they were either a ‘bonjour’ acquaintance (that is, people you know but not all that well), or you were on more 33 familiar ‘salut’ (‘hi’) terms.
In either case, two men would have to shake hands. Women were more complicated (as is often the case in France).
If there was a woman involved in the encounter, cheek-kissing might or might not be necessary. ‘Salut’ women would always expect a kiss. ‘Bonjour’ women might not, but then they might not expect a handshake either. Shaking the hand of a woman you know can feel a bit butch. I would often meet my immediate boss, a woman, walking with one or two of the (male) directors. I would shake the directors’ hands, saying ‘salut, Jacques’ to one of them (because he was a ‘hi’ kind of director),
