When you think of France, what exactly do you think of? Pretentiousness? Croissants? Perhaps Serge Gainsbourg smoking. For me, it’s Owen Wilson walking beside La Seine. But that is perhaps a result of watching Midnight in Paris at 16 instead of going out and doing normal teenage things like getting drunk and vomiting on my friend’s sofa.
Maybe you think of the kind of Parisian disdain that has long been the nation’s stereotype. It’s a portrayal that Netflix’s wildly successful Emily in Paris has leaned into, to the point where a character in the show’s third season says: “The French are just Italians in a bad mood.”
The French have a reputation for rudeness, but this may be unfair.Credit: Getty Images
On a recent trip to France and Italy, my first time visiting, I was curious to see if this claim rang true. Like many, I arrived in Paris full of assumptions: that the French would be aloof and allergic to tourists. My partner and I expected to be made fun of for our attempts to order coffee, over-reliance on tote bags and out-of-style sneakers. Instead, we got the most welcoming “bonjour” I had ever heard.
It was at a boutique store that neither me nor my partner had any financial right to be in. And yet, the “assistante commerciale” was unbelievably gentle. She helped us find something in our budget (a key ring) and complimented my girlfriend’s jacket, asking if it was vintage (it was).
On the metro system, I thought that would be the moment we would finally meet the sinister Parisians who pushed and shoved … And yet, we didn’t. Even when we went to the rooftop bar of the gorgeous department store Printemps, I thought about how “touristy” my partner and I must have looked as we were taking photos of our coffee, and the Eiffel Tower. Instead, a local simply said, “It is a beautiful view, huh?”
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Around the corner from our hotel in the 9th Arrondissement, there was a bar run by a gentleman called Robert. I couldn’t understand why he was so kind. My girlfriend whispered to me, “Your hair is looking a lot like Paul Mescal’s these days … Maybe he thinks you’re him?” He took us through his bar, showing us the kitchen, offering shots, conversing throughout, as if we were not just locals, but friends (or as the French say, “poto”, a loose translation of our term “mate”). He was being like this well before I told him that my name was also Robert, a revelation that, as you can imagine, called for even more celebration.
I asked him about the stereotype of the French, the whole notion they were “Italians in a bad mood”. Robert was not surprised by the perception, but remarked that this social flaw was actively being “dealt with” by the younger people of the city. His view was that the old French stereotype is a result of the older, more “conservative” generations. He said he employs many people who were not born in Paris, let alone France, and how this growth in both diversity and community has opened the potential for a kinder, more inclusive cultural shift.
I found the pinnacle of this shift in the Latin Quarter. Across La Seine, the 5th Arrondissement, is home to a buffet of different cultures, all intertwined and connected. There are pizza restaurants owned by off-the-boat Italians that serve every type of pork under the Tuscan sun, right next to a Halal kebab shop. It is a fascinating area, not too dissimilar to Melbourne’s Sydney Road, albeit … no offence, a little prettier.
