Rude Parisians

The world's most popular city, Paris, has a reputation as the rudest place on earth for tourists. In an effort to combat this, French authorities have launched an appeal for locals to refrain from the ‘Gallic snarl’ in encounters with foreign visitors.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, warned that surliness was a pothole on the road to tourism victory: “The logic is simple. An unhappy tourist is a tourist who never comes back.”

No doubt there are many Parisians, in particular, who would not find that a matter for regret. Every summer they must endure an invasion of big bottoms in bad shorts, booming foreign voices and boors who fail to realise that under the French code of courtesy, any approach from a stranger should begin with a polite “Bonjour” – and be followed by at least a minimal effort to start the conversation in French.

But the fact remains that international surveys have repeatedly found that foreign visitors rate the French capital as one of the world’s most hostile places - although France is currently also the world’s most visited country.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/RudeParisians