While she was researching her story on services for handicapped tourists in Paris, Julie met the city’s deputy mayor of Paris responsible for disability, Véronique Dubarry. Madame Dubarry took her activist role very seriously. She actually spent most of the interview criticizing Parisians’ disdain for the disabled. According to what Julie had seen, things weren’t too bad, but there were exceptions. Julie mentioned the fact that she had occasionally watched mothers push their strollers into the zones reserved for wheelchairs on city buses. Madame Dubarry nearly exploded—not at Julie’s observation, which she agreed with, but at Julie’s inadvertent sexism. “WHO pushes strollers? People push strollers, not mothers!”
Julie tried to salvage the situation by directing the conversation away from wheelchairs to the issue of non-voyants (visually impaired). She assumed the neutral terminology would appease Madame Dubarry. How wrong she was. “Ils sont aveugles (blind)!” Madame Dubarry shouted. If Julie had been interviewing someone in Madame Dubarry’s shoes in North America, that person might have corrected her, but she would have taken care not to make it sound too much like a reproach. In France, it’s perfectly acceptable to emphatically contradict a virtual stranger.
Simon Kuper, a reporter for the Financial Times based in Paris, wrote a bold column in 2013 that got straight to the heart of what stumps most foreigners in Paris: the damn codes. All societies have codes, Kuper argues, but Paris sets the bar too high. There are two kinds of codes in France. There are the signals the French use for communicating, specific things people say all the time, like bonjour. But then there are the unarticulated rules, which Kuper was referring to. “If you overlay an intellectual capital on an artistic and fashion capital in a former royal capital, all of it in the country that invented how to eat, there are so many codes governing so many behaviors that the demands of sophistication become all-encompassing.”1 As he put it, “In Paris, Big Brother (often in the form of oneself or one’s spouse) is always watching to see if you commit a faux pas.”
Those codes in France can seem like invisible road signs on a stormy night. But they’re not. Many of the mysteries around French codes boil down to one issue: the French have vastly different notions of what constitutes public versus private behavior. For example, North Americans always find it a bit unsettling in casual conversation when the French decline to offer their names or state what they do for a living, sometimes after hours of talking. But that’s because names and occupations are considered personal information in France. Asking for someone’s name even after you have said bonjour is considered invasive and inappropriate, and comes across as an interrogation. Then, as Madame Dubarry reminded Julie, in France arguing is a perfectly acceptable, even desirable, thing to do with people you don’t know and may never see again.
To grasp what’s public and what’s private in France, it’s best to forget about the “damn codes” and to think about “bubbles” instead. It was the great anthropologist Edward T. Hall, in the 1960s, who introduced the concept, which he actually called “spatial dimensions.” According to Hall, people in all cultures have imaginary rings that define the territory around them in slices, or in spheres. These territories represent the degree of control a person expects to have over whoever is inside them. At the core, very near the self, you have the intimate sphere, into which very few people are admitted. The next ring is the personal sphere, where several more people are welcome. Then, outside of that, there is the social bubble, which refers to anyone with whom a person is willing to interact. And then, on the outside of that, there is the public bubble, the largest ring, which consists of everyone you are vaguely aware of.
It’s actually not that difficult to understand the French bubbles. Regardless of whether you are close or far, it’s what’s said—or not said—inside them that determines the nature of the relationship with an interlocutor. If there’s no talk, there’s no relationship. Merely smiling in France is not a signal anyone wants to be your friend. Someone has to say something first. As we’ve seen, you can’t even be part of the bubble that constitutes the public sphere in France without opening your mouth.2 If you don’t say bonjour, you don’t exist. For that matter, when you find yourself in a packed subway car in Paris, pushed physically against another passenger, even in quite intimate physical contact, the French mark the distance by not saying a word. They don’t communicate in the least, not even by smiling—something North Americans find unsettling, because it’s our preferred technique for sending the message “it’s not personal.”
Getting access to the different bubbles is mostly a matter of understanding what topics are broached inside them, and what aren’t. If someone starts arguing with you, it might not signify anything more than the fact that the person acknowledges you, and maybe wants to interact with you. It is quite acceptable to voice critical opinions to a perfect stranger in France. And if you do it, people will not cut you off or tell you to quiet down (unless maybe you are in a theater). Correcting is also normal public behavior. The French remark rather freely on everything from others’ language to their appearance. It’s not always nice, but it’s not impolite.
Julie had a hard time getting the knack of this the first time we moved to France. Like many North Americans, when a Parisian joked about her accent—or her ignorance—she took it personally. The problem was, as a North American, Julie instinctively felt that poking fun at someone is something you do in private. It took her a while to understand that for the French, ribbing someone is not only acceptable public behavior; it’s actually quite flattering in its way. Occasionally, it is blatant bullying, but more often than not, it means someone wants to talk to you. After a year of smarting from what felt like head-on attacks by the merchants in our neighborhood, Julie had a breakthrough and realized it was best to think about French conversation as a recreational sport.
It also took us a while to get used to the fact that disagreement among couples is acceptable public behavior. It is, in fact, almost desirable, since it passes for a sign that a relationship is strong. This is the main reason French couples casually slip into spats, right in front of everyone. In France, arguing contradictory viewpoints as though your life depends on it is not gauche. Up to a certain point, it’s considered good fun. We observed this over and over at different dinner parties with North American and French acquaintances. The North American couples, consciously or not, work together to project an image of harmony. They support each other’s views, or if they do disagree, they do it gently, often packaging their views with an explanatory note that opens a social escape hatch for their partner (“my wife and I don’t always agree on everything”). Meanwhile, over on the French side of the table, the couples are heartily sparring about politics, art, women’s rights, or the president’s latest fling. At dinner, French couples just do what they normally do, maybe even better. The French are actually suspicious about couples that seem too harmonious. They think they’re hiding something.
So how do you move into the French personal sphere? In the most famous French novella of all time, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, one of the best-known anecdotes involves the little prince meeting a fox. When the prince tells the fox he wants to play with him, the fox answers that he can’t, because the prince needs to “tame” him (apprivoiser) first. The prince then asks what that means, and the fox explains that it is about establishing ties. With his tale about the universal theme of friendship, Saint-Exupéry appealed to audiences far beyond the borders of France, but the topic struck a chord with the French in particular because it explores the things you have to do to be part of someone’s private sphere. For the French, creating a bond with someone—entering someone’s personal or private sphere and becoming friends—is akin to taming. There are a series of stages that must be followed.
Luckily, the process of becoming friends in France is quite straightforward once you know the key words. When the French want to have a more personal relationship, when they want to go from the social bubble to the personal or even the intimate, they send crystal-clear signals, far more obvious signs than North Americans do. In a nutshell, they talk about private topics, which for them are family, work, and money. They also use humor—the private version of wit, which they display in public.
Fifteen years ago, Jean-Benoît befriended Daniel in his hiking club, after mistaking him for a snob. Daniel is always impeccably dressed in well-cut jackets and well-waxed shoes (which he actually polishes with champagne). Jean-Benoît is Daniel’s scruffy alter ego, but despite being aesthetically mismatched, the two connected instantly. That was personal chemistry. Friendship was a different matter. In retrospect, Jean-Benoît realized that Daniel was the first of our French connaissances to send a clear message he was opening the door to friendship. And he did that by broaching two topics the French only discuss with friends: his job and his family. The two became friends because Jean-Benoît reciprocated. It all unfolded spontaneously, and Julie was soon included in the circle.
When they are not at work, the French rarely talk about it with strangers, except in impersonal terms. They will not say they like their work, or discuss their true feelings regarding their peers and their superiors outside of general terms. If a French person tells you she likes her work, it’s a sign she regards you as a friend. Likewise, the French won’t mention family problems until they are ready to go all the way and welcome you into their inner circle.
In addition to talking about their families or their jobs, there’s another sure sign a French person is inviting you into his or her personal sphere: humor and self-deprecation. In France, humor is definitely reserved for the private sphere. In public, the French practice esprit, a form of high-spirited wit that can be quite funny but that doesn’t have the self-deprecating dimension of humor. The French love to show wit in public, essentially a spirited display of their intelligence and level of culture. Wit shows people you are smart and can communicate.
The French can be extremely funny in public, but it will rarely be humorous. Humor is almost always self-deprecating and puts you on the same level as everyone else. In North America, politicians prefer humor over wit, because with wit they run the risk of looking lofty or arrogant. Humor charms, and brings them down to a level ordinary people can relate to. But the French don’t think there’s anything funny about authority figures poking fun at themselves, particularly in public. Attempts at humor are yet another sign that the French want to establish a more personal relationship. If you try to be humorous with someone as a means of getting acquainted, he’ll think you are making a fool of yourself. Of course France has hordes of great comedians and humorists. And they do laugh at themselves in public. It’s their job description. French comedians do publicly what no one else would do, except in private.
Humor is one of the many problems of François Hollande, one of the most unpopular French presidents in French history. In Parisian press circles Hollande is reputed to be hilarious—in private. One of his many nicknames is Monsieur petites blagues (Mister small jokes). Because he’s so funny, he wins people over in one-on-one meetings. That might explain how he worked his way up to being a presidential candidate for France’s Socialist Party. But humor has no value in public. Hollande’s advisers do everything they can to make him seem less funny, to keep him from making a fool of himself. The result can be summed up by yet another nickname, Flanby, the name of a bland, jiggly caramel custard.
The refreshing thing about the French is that once you grasp these basic codes, you pretty much know where you stand with people. When the French don’t want a relationship or a friendship, they simply don’t reciprocate. They won’t engage in humor or talk shop or about family. And if you refuse to broach those topics as well, they’ll instantly understand that you are keeping them at bay. No explanation required.
Two months after our arrival, we were invited to an informal supper at the home of Mélanie and Antoine, the parents of one of our daughters’ school friends. Julie had met Mélanie at the café near our daughters’ school, where parents’ association meetings took place. An invitation to dinner soon followed. The evening was odd, even odder than the mismatched meal of waffles and good burgundy wine. While we ate, we learned that Mélanie was part of a group of parents who were trying to get a teacher at our daughters’ school fired. We tried to keep an open mind, but we really liked the teacher, who was an immigrant himself and particularly welcoming to students from other countries. Our reticence to engage with this couple probably shone through in our reserve. We didn’t really pry. Like almost all French dinner parties, opinions flowed as fast as wine, so when we left, we had a pretty clear idea of what Mélanie and Antoine thought about religion and the quality of France’s school system. But we didn’t have a clue what either of them did for a living. And while we spent half the evening listening to stories about Antoine’s family wine business in Burgundy, we didn’t hear a peep about either Antoine’s or Mélanie’s actual families beyond their involvement in the wine business. Jobs and family are just not things you talk about with strangers, or even connaissances, and that’s what we were, connaissances—and that’s what we remained. No questions asked.
French people who have lived for a while in North America, whether in New York City, Los Angeles, or Montreal, all have the same traumatic story. They find themselves in a bar chatting with a perfect stranger. They drink; they tell each other their personal story. The French are convinced they have a friend for life. And then, when they meet that person two days later and realize that person doesn’t remember their name, they are lost. This situation happens because in North America, giving your name and talking about your personal life is something you do in public and it doesn’t mean anything. In France, name exchanges amount to something of a commitment. (Strangely, outside of formal contexts, introductions almost never happen, and when they do, they come late—if at all. The logic is that if you know about a person, you’re in and you don’t need to be introduced.)3
The zone between friend and stranger is where things get tricky in France. Many people learning French assume that the choice of the personal pronoun tu versus the more formal vous is directly related to the degree of intimacy you share with a collocutor and can operate as signposts to tell you where you are with someone. If only it were that simple. Tu and vous are, indeed, codes. The French even make them into the verbs tutoyer (“to use tu”) and vouvoyer (“to use vous”) and nouns tutoiement (“tu-saying”) and vouvoiement (“vous-saying”), to make it possible to talk about the rules that govern their use.4 In whatever form, the terms can signify many things. The use of vous signals formality but also solemnity. Vous is used to address someone older; it’s a mark of rank or perceived distance. Even someone who is introduced to you by first name should be addressed in the vous form to mark rank. A waiter, for instance, who uses tu with a customer is being condescending, even insulting. Tu is used, in some contexts, not to mark familiarity but common membership or allegiance. For instance, graduates of any grande école address each other with tu no matter what their differences in age or rank.
The French choose whether you use tu or vous to send specific signals. Even in a formal or relatively formal context, a stranger may address you as tu because of perceived or demonstrated equality. When the proper use is not clear, it’s usually a good idea to use vous as a default. (It’s never impolite.) The worst that can happen is that you end up sounding a bit insecure. But you’re better safe than sorry. Especially if you are unsure about French proxemics and don’t really know exactly what bubble you are in.5
When used properly, the tu-vous distinction can be a great tool for building relationships with the French. That’s because acknowledging hierarchical positions is a good way to establish a foothold with anyone in France. We had brunch one afternoon with Armand Compte, the brother of a friend who had invited us. Armand, who was working on a Ph.D. in history, regaled us with stories of letter writing in the academic world, in particular, the strict codes—formulas, really—that scholars and students use to mark rank. If you are a professor writing to a student, he told us, you have to sign your letter “Bien à vous” (with best wishes) or “Cordialement” (cordially). But if you are a student responding to a professor, you have to write “Respectueusement” (respectfully). Likewise, if you are a professor writing to a superior, say, to a minister or to the principal of your university, you have to conclude your letter “Respectueusement.” But then the principal will come back to you with cordialement or bien à vous (because he or she is your superior), unless a previous relationship allows for more familiarity. “If you deviate from these rules, you’re sunk,” Armand told us. (Armand was just dumbfounded by the almost universal habit in U.S. academic circles of signing exchanges with “Best.” “Who is best?” he asked us. “Why are they best?”)
Jean-Benoît did not know about this nuance—Quebeckers are more casual about such things. But when he consciously applied Armand’s rules, he suddenly got more answers to his e-mail queries. The people he approached as a journalist did not feel slighted. That’s what understanding the codes can do for you.
One of the most remarkable cultural differences between the French and the Americans is that the French have few amis, friends. Despite what English-French dictionaries say, ami does not have the same meaning as the English “friend.” The French have strict rules about what constitutes un ami, and the term can’t be used casually to refer to someone you like but don’t know well. They refer to that category of acquaintances as a connaissance. A connaissance still has to travel quite a long road to become un ami.
When the French have a business or social connection with a connaissance, that person becomes a relation. Interestingly, even connaissances have degrees. When the French speak of someone they know very well, they will qualify the connaissance as “old” rather than “good”—a vieille connaissance implies that you have known the person for a while, but it actually refers to someone you know well. The expression is curiously dispassionate: a vieille connaissance may or may not be someone you actually like. When this connaissance becomes more affectionate, the French speak of a pote (pronounced like “putt”), which is very colloquial. A pote isn’t exactly a friend either. It’s a person with whom you share les atomes crochus (good chemistry). In today’s French, copain implies a love relation. (Strangely, the French have no direct translation of “girlfriend” or “boyfriend.” Quebeckers do. They call a girlfriend une blonde and a boyfriend, un chum.)
A true ami, also called un intime, is for the happy few and has the specific meaning of a “very good friend, almost family.”6 You have to beware of its use in certain contexts: when someone you hardly know speaks directly to you as “mon ami,” it’s almost always condescending. And you become un ami after you have gone through the obligatory stages of connaissance, relation, and pote, and have progressed from talking about ideas and arguing to discussing family and work and using humor. It is the French adult’s version of the little prince taming his fox.
French authors and artists have written beautifully about friendship over the centuries, and it’s a testament to the incredible value the French place on intense relationships. The French writer Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) is probably most famous for summing up the essence of friendship when he wrote about his relationship with the French writer and philosopher Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563). “Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi” (Because he was he, and I was I). It might be the most beautiful pair of phrases ever written about a platonic relationship.
Second prize would go to the painter and sculptor Georges Braque (1882–1963), who wrote about his relationship with Pablo Picasso. The two artists, who jointly forged Cubism among other things, had a legendary, fusional friendship between 1907 and 1914, when they saw each other at least once a day and developed a totally new way of looking at physical reality and representing it. Much later, in a rare interview, Braque said: “In those years Picasso and I said things to each other that nobody will ever say again, that nobody could say anymore.… It was rather like a pair of climbers roped together.”7 (World War I separated the pair. Picasso, a Spaniard, was never called to arms. Braque, a lieutenant, was nearly blinded in combat and spent a year convalescing. By the time Braque recovered, he had moved on and the rope was cut, their atomes no longer crochus.)
The true dimension of un ami is something close to family and love, and it is a mutual and reciprocal feeling—this is the intimate circle. Although the process is codified, it doesn’t necessarily take long to get through the stages to friendship. When we met our friends Anne and François in March 1999, things moved so quickly that Julie became the godmother of their daughter Ambre a year later.
To the French, having a lot of friends sounds like you take friendship lightly. Like love and like family, friendship comes with privileges, and with responsibilities. The main privilege is access. The responsibility is an unspoken promise to help whenever asked, no questions asked. During one of our first dinners with Anne and François, when we returned to France in 2013, we told them we had not brought our daughters’ guitars to France because of luggage limitations. François stared at us for a second, then turned around, picked up the phone, and called his old friend, Alain Mazaud, a guitar maker in the Normandy village of Fresney-le-Puceux. “Salut, Alain, it’s me.… Look, I have a friend here, Jean-Benoît.… Yes, him. He has these twin daughters who play guitar. But they left their guitars back in Montreal. So, listen, I need that old guitar of yours. You know the one … yes. They are here for the year.… Bring it with you when you come next weekend. And don’t forget the case. Bye.”
François didn’t even specifically ask his friend Alain to help us. He told him he needed a guitar, thanked him, and hung up. Alain probably remembered meeting us a decade earlier, but it didn’t matter. Alain and François were friends. And François was our friend. In France, friends don’t explain why they are asking favors (or in our case, receiving favors). That’s one big reason the French may have lots of relations, but very few friends. Who could possibly manage more than a few?