French Stereotypes

We have all heard the French ungenerously described as "arrogant," "rude" and "bureaucratic." While we have not lived here long enough to be experts on such topics, we can, without hesitation, vouch for the kindness and friendliness of the French that we have encountered as we struggle to find our way in our new life in Toulouse. People have really been delightful. Contrary to the negative stories one hears about French people’s intolerance of poor French and their reluctance to use English, the many, many people we have interacted with in the last week have been more than patient as we mercilessly butcher their language and many have readily offered English words and phrases to help us along.

For example, the lovely woman at France Telecom cheerfully drew us pictures to help us understand the internet, telephone and TV package available to us, which she then explained that we wouldn’t be able to purchase without a bank account. The woman at the post office was also incredibly sweet and apologetic as she explained that we wouldn’t be able to get a bank account at the post office until we had a residency permit. (One can do one’s banking at post offices in France.) The people at the institute where Marty will be working said they can’t sign the form that is required for a residency permit because the individuals who are authorized to sign the form are on vacation for the month (like most of the country). When we tried to get a non-resident account, our post-office friend felt terrible when she had to tell us that our driver’s license and car title showing our address in the U.S. were not good enough to establish our residency there. She even assured us that she would give us an account if she were empowered to do so. We have to have a utility bill to prove our residency in the U.S. Documents issued by the state of New Hampshire are apparently suspect, but, we have since been told, utility bills carry great weight in France.

The young man at the private bank was also patient as he explained that we would have to wait four days to get an appointment to talk with someone about opening a bank account, and, by the way, we will need to have a copy of a pay stub to show we have a monthly income before we will be allowed to open an account. Cash alone is not sufficient to open a bank account. When we returned to French Telecom to explain that there would be significant delay before we could open a bank account and could we simply pay cash in advance for a year of service, the really helpful and sympathetic man there told us it was impossible for them to take cash in advance and we simply couldn’t get telecom service without a bank account.

As you can see, the stereotypes about rudeness and arrogance certainly don’t seem to apply to the Toulousians. They are exceptionally nice. Now about that bureaucracy...we’ll let you know once we get our residency permit, so we will be able to get a bank account, so we can have a telephone, internet access and a working TV – but it’s going to be a while.