I think we can all agree we hate the French. It’s OK, they hate us, too. Sure, sure, they gave the world Roquefort cheese, expensive perfume, Cezanne, Voltaire and Descartes and the metric system (for which I will never forgive them since it means I always need two sets of wrenches on hand when fixing anything).
They invented French fries and then had the nerve to laugh at Americans when we got fat from eating them.
They also gave us Proust, Dumas and Hugo, which was nice of them, but I think it’s important we keep hating them anyway.
Why?
Well, they’re rude. They’re like a whole country full of New Yorkers. And unlike us, they don’t confine all their rude jerks to one state. Also, they’re not only rude to Americans, they’re rude to each other. They’re probably even rude to Canadians, and everybody likes Canadians (except for the French Canadians up in Quebec, who are almost as rude as the “real” French).
Have you ever been to France? Me neither, but I’ve seen “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” about seven times, so I’m something of an expert when it comes to understanding world culture.
French people themselves admit they’re rude. They revel in their rudeness. But to their credit, a few of the country’s more enlightened citizens are trying to make some long-overdue changes. Recently, in the city of Nice (which is ironically named, since nobody there is), a coffee house adjusted its pricing to account for customer attitude.
A customer who steps up to the counter and says, “Bonjour, un cafe, s'il vous plait” – French for “Hello, gimme a coffee, please” (or something close to that) – has to fork over only $1.90, about 1.40 in euros. Pretty cheap cuppa joe, by Starbucks standards.
However, if the customer orders the way most French people do, by saying “Un café!” – French for “Gimme coffee” – they get a tab for $9.50, more than three times the price a polite customer has to pay!
I’m assuming if a customer shouts, “Donnez-moi un café en ce moment et le faire rapidement vous fils d'une chèvre de mere!” – French for “Gimme a coffee right now and make it fast you son of a motherless goat!” – the barista comes around the counter and hits him in the head with an espresso machine.
And still! Still! Some French coffee lovers insist on ordering the rude way. Why? Because they’re French and they can’t help it.
Even so, it’s nice to see at least some French folks making those first, tentative steps toward a more polite society. But even if they all do miraculously become polite overnight, it’s still going to be hard to trust them.
Why? (You’re asking “why” a lot today; it’s getting annoying. I’ll tell you anyway.) Because the French language sounds absolutely beautiful. Even asking where the bathroom is in French – Où est la salle de bain? – is pure poetry.
Many, many years ago, for two magnificent weeks, I dated a girl from Lyon, France, who was in the states visiting her aunt. As my very good luck would have it, the aunt was a friend of mine. Her niece, Jenette, was a vision, an exotic dark-haired beauty of the sort that stops all male conversation the moment she enters a room.
She spoke about six words of English. I spoke no French, other than the lyrics from that disco song about the Moulin Rouge and I knew those were dirty. But, in my mind, we conversed fluently in the international language of love. Each French word that passed her flawless, plum-ripe lips sounded consummately romantic.
Though most of what she said I no longer remember, there was one phrase she repeated over and over, even as we parted at the airport on the last day of her visit: “Vous êtes très belle, mais je ne suis tout simplement pas qu'en vous.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and meant it.
Years later, someone invented Google Translate. Turns out her last words to me were, “You’re very nice, but I’m just not that into you.”
There’s a reason I hate the French.
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