I have to apologise on behalf of my fellow countrymen. As a Frenchman living in London and having travelled extensively, I have stopped counting the number of times someone has told me they had a bad experience in Paris because people were rude. But it’s not just foreigners, the rest of us French think the people from Paris are rude and obnoxious as well.

On the other hand, you have to consider cultural differences. When, as a foreigner, you are in a restaurant, you might feel that waiters are rude. Usually, it’s not the case, it’s just that it’s not customary to be as expansive with customers as you would be in say the US. They just do their job: serve you, as efficiently as they can. Then, most French people find it very difficult to master a foreign language so if they have to speak to you in English, they will keep it to a bare minimum, which can pass for rudeness. Finally, contrary to the US, French waiters don’t expect a big tip as their wages is included in the price of the meal or drinks. The most they will expect is that you round up the bill to the nearest euro. As a result, they don’t necessarilly make an effort to be nice the way American waiters do because they don’t expect you to tip.

Seen from the opposite point of view, I felt rather ill at ease today in a pub in Atlanta because one of the staff was extremely friendly and expansive and I couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or not. To me, his ways were so over the top that they seemed completely artificial. But maybe I was wrong.