Yep, as I said, it’s a very specific part of France and not a “French” thing in general. Anecdata is anecdata, but I’ve had a lot of friends (some French, some not) agree that this is common in this specific place, so I know I’m not alone.
It certainly is plausible that different cultures have different tendencies but this seems like it must be exaggerated somewhat for entertainment purposes because it almost paints French people as a bit of a caricature.
The specific example sounds like it could be a combination of a very small amount of language boundary and a slightly unhelpful or not particularly brilliant airline agent.
Anyway I'm interested to hear what French people think of this.
And it makes sense that it could be intentional. There is a ton of rivalry between France and The US, in cultural terms. French people have a contempt attitude towards US citizen manners, they think they are rude, loud, and often self-centered. When you go to France, don't you dare to speak to someone in English, they are gonna freak out.
I believe it is pretty clever to defy them by using a French word that sounds a little inappropriate in English, if that were the case. Totally legal. But if its not, why should we, non-US Citizens, have to bare linguistic and cultural impositions because some feel 'uncomfortable' with the way we express in our own languages? Totally non-sense.
not sure you understood my point. I rely on immediate cognitive understanding of what "french" means.
It's a mix of the way you dress, your body features (yes, skin color is one of them obviously but that's far from the only one), your language, all your daily habits, the food you eat, author you've read, etc.
It's the general picture people have in their mind when they think of an archetypal "french". Doesn't mean all french are like that, obviously. Much like i'm pretty sure you could find japanese with natural blond hair who never eat raw fish.
You may also argue that this image of french people is completely outdated, and that the metropolitan french population has evolved in the past 50 years. But that's precisely my point.
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