Paris still enjoys the privilege of showing everyone how things should be done. And everyone living there shares this privilege. They don’t need to be born in Paris. All they have to do is be in Paris and conform to Paris. The city will exclude anyone who doesn’t belong there, and who does nothing to look as though they want to belong—people who refuse to adapt their appearance, their gestures and their way of speaking, and who try to impose their habits on Paris, immediately become suspect.
This need to conform is why Paris never really changes. Unlike cities such as London and New York, where newcomers bring fresh influences, everyone arriving in Paris gets pushed through the same pasta mould and ends up as a length of typically Parisian spaghetti, intertwined with all the others in the tasty but rather over-rich sauce that the city throws over everything.
And adaptation is not just about clothing and ways of speaking. What you have to do to become a Parisian is get it into your head that you are the most important being in the universe. Other people might think they are important, and must be humoured, but they are wrong. The only truly important thing is you and your life. Everything you want to do (or rather, need to do) is urgent and of vital importance, and you are therefore (regrettably) obliged to ignore the wishes of the other, lesser, beings, including your fellow Parisians. If anyone tries to stop you, you are perfectly entitled to get annoyed at them because they are just being ignorant.
And it works—as soon as you start acting like a Parisian, you will be accepted as one. Before you have completed the process, however, there is one vital skill that you have to develop as a survival tool …
How NOT to annoy a Parisian
A few hints on how to avoid treading on a Parisian’s toes, or getting trodden on, both literally and metaphorically:
In a café or restaurant
If you only want a drink, don’t sit down at a table that has been laid for lunch or dinner. Laying these tables in preparation for mealtimes, and thereby limiting the number of drinks-only tables, is the waiters’ equivalent of herding sheep. Sit in the wrong place and they will set the dogs on you (verbally, at least).
Except in fast-food places and English- or Irish-style pubs, never order at the bar and then take your drink to a table. Usually, the bar and the tables are governed by two different cash tills and the drinks are priced differently, so by doing this, you will plunge the café into accounting hell, as well as making the waiter very indignant. Smokers wishing to drink a cheap coffee must alternate—sip of coffee at the bar indoors, puff of cigarette outside (unless they’re regulars, in which case they will be allowed to take their cup—but not usually their saucer—outdoors). I have actually seen a fist fight between the owner of a café and a smoker who paid for his coffee at the bar and then came outside to sit at a table.
If the waiter comes to your table while you’re perusing the menu and asks whether you’ve chosen (‘Vous avez fait votre choix?’), make damn sure before you answer ‘yes’ that everyone at the table really has decided what they’re going to order. The slightest sign of hesitation from anyone in your party will mean that you have been lying, and the punishment for lying to a waiter is to watch him raise his eyes towards heaven and pray that God will strike you dead. And then disappear for at least ten minutes while you try in vain to attract his attention.
Do not, under any circumstances, mention the words ‘Vegetarian’ or ‘food allergy’, because doing so anywhere except in a health-food restaurant will only cause unnecessary panic, like saying ‘bomb’ in an American airport. Instead, you must either choose something on the menu that you’re sure you can eat (and most cafés and restaurants will have something) or say, ‘Je prends le/la … sans le/la … s’il vous plait’ (‘I’ll have the … without the … please’). The waiter will respect you for knowing what you want in life, and probably won’t ask you why you want it.
Don’t just breeze into a café and ask to use the toilets. Toilets are for customers only. Simply order a coffee at the bar, wait till it’s served, and then go to the toilet, which will almost always be downstairs or in a corner of the café, and is usually marked with a Toilettes sign. Some cafés, especially in touristy or crowded areas, will force you to ask for a token (jeton) at the bar, or even the key, and will only give it in return for a food or drink order.
In shops
In boulangeries, people queue in an orderly fashion, mainly thanks to the boulangères strict discipline. But things can go awry—when, for example, there are two women serving and one of them accidentally misses out a customer, thinking that they’re already being served. If you are the missed-out one, it is perfectly OK to pipe up, politely but firmly, ‘En fait, c’est à moi’ (‘Actually, I’m next’). If however, you are the person who has been unfairly favoured, it is best to say, ‘En fait, c’est à Madame/ Monsieur’ (Actually, Monsieur/Madame is next’), because if you play dumb, and the person in front of you realizes what’s going on, he or she will complain and your order will probably be put to one side, causing confusion at the till. Moral of the story: if, for once, you are in a Parisian queue that is actually working, make sure that the status quo is upheld. The alternative is anarchy.
In other small shops, or at the market, there may not be an orderly queue. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to gauge how things are being managed. Even though there is what looks like an anarchic huddle in the charcuterie/ fromagerie/boucherie/marchand de vin, is there actually a first come first served policy? If so, you should engage in resolute eye contact with the sales assistant when it comes to your turn, and be ready with ‘En fait, c’est à moi’ in case someone tries to push in. If, on the other hand, it’s total anarchy, just stare the assistant in the eyes until he or she looks your way for a second, then blurt out ‘Bonjour’ and your order before anyone else can get a word in. Bizarrely, under these circumstances, respecting the law of the jungle reassures Parisians and keeps them calm.
There is, however, one way to annoy Parisians even while standing passively in line, with the right change, a patient smile on your face and only nine items in the ‘ten and under’ supermarket queue. That is if it is getting near the cashier’s break time and he or she tells you, ‘Après vous, c’est fermé’ (‘After you, I’m closing my till’). This means that you have been entrusted with the moral responsibility of telling anyone who stands behind you, ‘C’est fermé après moi.’ Personally, I usually remember to say this once or twice and then forget, and have to annoy the three people behind me by telling them the bad news. These days, if I hear the fatal phrase ‘Après vous, c’est fermé,’ I either bow out and go to the back of another line, or accept my fate and stay facing backwards until I’m served—this helps me remember to tell approaching customers that there’s no point joining my queue, and also makes me look so weird that few people want to risk it anyway.
In the street
It’s the most frequently repeated piece of advice, but it’s valid—even if you can’t speak French, don’t launch straight into English or any other language when addressing a Parisian. The most gifted, multilingual Parisian will pretend not to understand you unless you start the conversation with bonjour, or bonsoir after about 5 p.m. (see ‘Essential Phrases’ below).
Don’t dress as though you’re going to the beach (even if you are on your way to Paris Plages**. Bikini tops are not considered acceptable streetwear, except by ogling men.
Don’t hail an occupied taxi. This will only confirm the taxi driver’s view that most of his clients are idiots. It’s not entirely the arm-waver’s fault, though, because Parisian taxis’ light signals aren’t very clear. If a taxi is free, the white light on its roof is completely lit up. If it is taken, the tiny orange light below the white light is lit up and the white light is not. The problem being that, in daylight, both of these lights are practically invisible. Fortunately, France is introducing a new system, whereby the roof light will be green if the taxi is free and red if it’s not. Though this might take some ti
me to have an effect, because drivers are being allowed to keep their old white light until they have to buy a new car.
It is also a given that if an unoccupied taxi driver doesn’t like the look of you, he won’t stop anyway. And that even if he does stop, he might wind down his window, ask you where you’re going, and drive away if he doesn’t want to go there.
Don’t step on to one of the pedestrian crossings that have no traffic lights and expect an oncoming driver to stop of his or her own accord. Stepping out in front of this car, even if it is some way off, will get you, at best, yelled at, and at worst run over and yelled at.
Warning: do not ask this Parisian ‘Où est le Sacré Coeur?’ When Parisians see tourists gazing blankly at a map of the city, they don’t think, ‘Huh, tourists,’ they think, ‘Thank God they’re not going to ask me for directions.’ If, in a dire emergency, you do need to ask, always remember to say ‘Bonjour’ first, thus avoiding a painful snub.
Similarly, if cycling anywhere except in a cycle lane, always assume that you are invisible to car drivers, or that they want to kill you. Even cycle lanes are not always safe, because many of them share space with bus lanes. Bus drivers resent this, because Bus is written on the road in large letters and they assume that this gives them a monopoly. Taxis and motorbikes can also use bus lanes, and they see cycles as rivals for their hard-won privilege. And anyway, if you look closely, the cyclist painted in cycle lanes looks as though he’s been squashed by a bus or taxi. In short, if cycling near any motor vehicles, prepare to die messily.
Don’t smile randomly at passers-by. You might think you’re being friendly and showing how pleased you are to be visiting their city, but they will think you’re either mad, laughing at them, or asking for sex. Of course, if you do want sex, all you have to do is smile at a passing Parisian male.
In your rented apartment or hotel
In hotels, never complain that there are no tea- and coffee-making facilities in your room. Those who require an early-morning or late-night cuppa will usually need to come equipped with a kettle.
Similarly, it’s not worth complaining if your accommodation is gloomy or noisy. Any room or apartment below the second floor will probably be gloomy because almost every street in Paris is lined with six- or seven-storey buildings. Also, even with double-glazing, if you’re right above the pavement, you may well have to listen to yelling drunks at night and the dawn chorus of clattering dustbins (they’re plastic but still make a racket when slammed against a truck to be emptied and then dumped back on the pavement).
If you’re renting an apartment in a building occupied by Parisians, don’t say to yourself, ‘Excellent, this entrance hall is empty, so there’s lots of room to park the bike I’ve rented and/or stow the buggy rather than humping it up six flights of stairs.’ In fact, the entrance hall is empty precisely because the residents who own apartments in the building have voted to forbid wheeled machines of any sort in their entrance hall. Leaving a bike or buggy, even for one night, will probably earn you an angry note from the old man on the second floor who’s lived there for forty years and who tripped over a badly parked bike in 1982 and has needed an annual health-spa holiday ever since. If he hasn’t got arthritis in his fingers, he might even let your tyres down.
Essential phrases for getting on with Parisians
Bonjour!
To be said in a loud sing-song way, so that rather than wishing someone a good day, it comes to mean anything from ‘Hello, I’m not an enemy, honestly’ to ‘Yes, you’re not hallucinating, I am here and you’re going to have to stop yakking to your colleague and serve me.’
C’est à moi, en fait
‘It’s my turn, actually’—to be said with a calm, polite smile that proves beyond doubt that the wannabe queue-jumper is not going to be allowed to push in front of you. Try not to weaken and say, ‘C’est à moi, je pense (I think), because the queue-jumper can say, ‘Non, je ne pense pas,’ and carry on with their evil-doing.
Permettez-moi
Literally it means ‘allow me’, and strictly speaking should be said to accompany some polite gesture. However, it can be turned on its head when, for example, a Parisian grabs a visitor’s métro ticket out of their tentative fingers and shoves it in the turnstile slot so that the dawdling visitor will go through and get the hell out of his life.
Après vous
‘After you’—again, instead of its literal meaning, it can be used to mean ‘Get through that door and out of my life.’
Pour qui il/elle se prend?
‘Who does (s)he think (s)he is?’ A confusing one, perhaps, but this is often said directly to someone who has got the better of you or is seriously trying to. In old-fashioned Parisian argot, to avoid the tu-vous issue, people used to talk in the third person. In black-and-white films, waiters asked strangers, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’il veut, le Monsieur?’—‘What would the gentleman like?’ So ‘Pour qui il/elle se prend?’ is a combination of a direct ‘Who do you think you are?’ and an appeal to anyone else in the vicinity to confirm that this other person is an idiot/snob/bastard, etc.
Franchement!
‘Honestly!’—perhaps safer than trying to use the above vintage slang. To be huffed loudly if someone does anything to dent your Parisian sense of superiority.
Bonne journée/soirée, etc.
At the end of any transaction or meeting, as well as saying au revoir, Parisians usually wish each other a good day, afternoon or evening. In fact, despite their reputation for being unwelcoming, they will wish each other a good anything. A friendly waiter might wish departing tourists bonne visite (if he’s received a decent tip), a hotel receptionist will say bon séjour (‘have a good stay’). Once I even heard a woman wish her friend bon dentiste—the ‘bon(ne) + noun grammatical structure is so economical and flexible that this could have meant anything from ‘I hope your visit to the dentist goes OK’ to ‘I hope you enjoy yourself on your date with the hunky dentist.’ In short, it’s a safe way of using your limited French vocabulary to the full, and winning Parisian friends. Bonne improvisation!
* For more on this museum, see Chapter 5.
** For more on this annual phenomenon, see Chapter 3.
The sorely missed pissoirs were phased out in the 1980s, though many Parisian men pretend not to have noticed.
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PAVEMENTS
PARIS EST LA VILLE où les caniveaux sont les plus propres du monde parce que les chiens les respectent.
(Paris has the cleanest gutters in the world because the dogs respect them.)
ALAIN SCHIFRES, FRENCH
JOURNALIST
IN MAY 2009, Beaux Arts, a monthly art magazine, published a survey entitled Les Français et la beauté. Amongst other things, the French were asked about the biggest ‘source of beauty’ in their everyday life.
Predictably, 35 per cent replied ‘making love’, but that was only the second most popular answer. The first was ‘walking in the street’, with 44 per cent of votes.
The conclusions are pretty catastrophic for the country’s reputation. French buildings are more beautiful than French lovers? The curves of a passing Renault are more aesthetically pleasing than those on a French body? Even if this is over-interpreting the survey a little, the results do say something about the importance of street life in France, and particularly in Paris. In fact, walking around Paris is such an established tradition that it has its own art form. It’s called flâner, a verb meaning to stroll aimlessly, and its artist is the flâneur, the man (women seem to be too busy to ‘flan’) who wanders the city streets in search of inspiration for his poems, paintings or travel books.
The concept of flâner was invented by the decadent poet Charles Baudelaire in the nineteenth century. When he wasn’t writing verse or combating his spleen (a poetic combination of boredom, self-loathing and intoxicating substances), he was wandering the streets. Although by claiming this as an art form, in fact he was merely legitimizing what all Paris’s gentlemen of lei
sure had long been doing—cruising in search of sex, with a waitress, perhaps, an impressionable off-duty servant, a married woman with a glint in her eye, or, failing that, a prostitute, of which there were many.
This fascination with le flâning (the French are bound to call it this one day) may explain why so many of the picture rooms in the Musée Carnavalet,* Paris’s autobiographical history museum, are hung with street scenes. Men in top hats and ladies in bustles stroll along pavements, stream out of the theatre, and lounge on café terraces. There is even one painting of a sortie de lycée, with teenagers leaving school at the end of the day. Artists in every city paint street scenes, but in Paris it seems to have been an obsession. Life was, and is, dans la rue.
And even if you’re looking for nothing more artistic than the chance to fill your camera’s memory card with holiday snaps, walking is still an excellent way of getting around the city. Not only because Paris is so small that a day’s footwork can take you through dozens of very different neighbourhoods, but also because there are so many uniquely Parisian things to discover on or alongside the pavements.
What’s in a nom?
When I first came to Paris, I was completely bemused by the road names. Although I could read the signs, I often had no idea which street I was actually in, because sometimes the smallest, simplest junction of two roads would have several signs telling me completely different things.
For example, at one street corner in the Marais, there are three blue enamel plaques—two on the left, one on the right—informing me that I’m in the rue Charlemagne. So far so good. But on the same walls, there are carved-stone signs suggesting that I might be in the rue des Prêtres. And on one side of the street, there’s also a carved-out piece of wall where a name sign has obviously been taken down.
Paris Revealed Page 3