France is Fucked....

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Regime, legit haircuts don't take one hour!

[Zerai]

Originally Posted by Eomer

They'll pretty much spit on you even if you speak to them in French, if it's not the "proper" French. IE: a Canadian or Quebecois accent. But as you said, that's mostly in Paris and not the rest of the country.

Only to Americans though.

We got treated quite well as Canadians. I lived just outside of Paris for 4 years. St. Germain-en-laye

The only people who are as big of assholes about their language is Quebec to us.

Fuck Quebec.

[Bloodget]

As a French myself, I can say that :

-People living in Paris are generally assholes. (not all, only 99.9%). Strangers hate them, French hate them, and they hate the whole world,

-elsewhere, I don't think you will have any problem,

-we don't hate Quebec AT ALL, in fact most Frenches like them a lot (and they make us laugh when they speak too),

-I was not aware that we had socialists in power atm. To be honest, socialist party is kinda destroyed and will take some time to be rebuilt.

(Oh, and we are paid 35 hours, that doesn't means we work 35 hours. Don't be so naive.

[ToeMissile]

I went to Paris a couple years ago w/ my gf at the time and did have any issues except for 2 people, a waiter and some guy on the street. Other than that everyone we met were very polite and helpful, people actually walked up to us and asked if we needed help finding something when we were looking over a map or something. So I dunno, maybe it was just a good week for everyone.

[Snugglebear]

Apparently in France, it's tough to break into the upper echelons and best schools/jobs unless you know people. And it's illegal to take job statistics based on race, so nobody can even tell for certain how underrepresented minorities are.

[Tea on tuesday]

Originally Posted by ToeMissile

I went to Paris a couple years ago w/ my gf at the time and did have any issues except for 2 people, a waiter and some guy on the street. Other than that everyone we met were very polite and helpful, people actually walked up to us and asked if we needed help finding something when we were looking over a map or something. So I dunno, maybe it was just a good week for everyone.

It's been a mixed bag for me in Paris. Mostly it's just people going about their lives. Some are rude. Some are nice. The rude ones tend to stand out more and be more memorable.

An American, who lived in Paris, who I talked to one time said it's better in Aug/Sep because a lot of people go on vacation...errr holiday, so many of the people who remain are dependent on tourist dollars. I've no idea how accurate that is, and it's likely to be mostly apocryphal; but a similar thing does happen in Milan due to mosquitoes (I think---not positive on that either, when I lived in Italy I mostly preferred everything south of Naples and north of Sicily except for some excursions to the Italian Riviera) around the same time so it might have some merit.

[CnCGOD]

I found Italy very hospitable when I visited 5-10years ago. Rome didn't have tons of Gypsies like everyone warned (Not sure why) and Sorento was really nice...

But I have heard nothing but bad about Paris's people etc.

[Eomer]

^heh, did you go to Naples? I've heard nothing but bad about that place in terms of crime. My parents did a trip through Europe for their honeymoon in the 70's, and they even paid the concierge or whatever to have their car parked somewhere safe, and it was still robbed. He probably pocketed the money and passed the info on regardless. Naples is pretty infamous for theft, and apparently it hasn't changed much.

[Derivator]

Originally Posted by Tea on tuesday

An American, who lived in Paris, who I talked to one time said it's better in Aug/Sep because a lot of people go on vacation...errr holiday, so many of the people who remain are dependent on tourist dollars.

I can second this. When I went to Paris in August everyone was very friendly, even random people in the residential areas that I bugged for directions. Didn't even get robbed on the metro!