To find people watching in Paris fascinating?

[delighteddreams]

It's my first time visiting France, and I found people watching completely fascinating in and around Paris. Everyone seemed to live life at a much slower pace, sitting at cafes with an espresso for ages either with friends or alone, just people watching. No rushed Starbucks coffee drunk on the go, or sitting at a cafe on their phones absent mindedly.

At my hotel there was a breakfast buffet and there were marked differences between the French families and the British families (including me/my family). The British ate pretty quickly, with an impatience and excitement to get on with their day of tourist activities, the French families were much slower. They got several plates of different foods and presented it all on the table, and would eat so slowly and methodically.

I spent a day at Disneyland, and again for me meals were a quick ends to a means, quickly fill up on something so we can get back to the rides, parades, etc. I watched a couple of young women in their 20s sitting at a table, in a busy restaurant among the frantic hustle and bustle of a restaurant, they were just sitting quietly, drinking their coffee and chatting. It was like time had paused for them.

Obviously this is a huge generalisation, but I came away feeling inspired and like it was something I wanted to adopt. It feels like I'm always rushing to the next thing, never just sitting and being.

Has anyone had any interesting observations of France and French culture?

My DD's go to Paris to see concerts. They find the street harrasment more sexually aggressive and threatening. The women seem to have a greater sense of internalised misogyny and brush it off.

I can remember when it took a lot longer to get places and people would set up tables. Other people laughing at them soon put a stop to that.

They drink wine then drive? This is not something to be impressed by

Do they bring picnic table and chairs ?

Jeezey peeps. We have enough in the bloody daily Mail about how chic and amazing the French are. Cannot be arsed reading it here too.

I agree I love french style, although nearly all of my friends are french and we are always taking the piss out of each others cultural differences.

I would love to learn how to do this. I believe the French work shorter hours too. Even now, WFH and avoiding the commute, having thrown on any old clothes and no make-up, eating my hastily prepared lunch at my desk I still don’t have enough time to get all my work done. And I’m sure French children do several hours of homework per night. There must be a knack to it.

It's a strange thing because I am neither elegant nor chic but every time I'm in Paris people ask me for directions.

Perhaps it's the cigarettes 😁

People watching in Paris is my favourite thing!
Such elegance! The clothes and the style.
Chic women on bikes with hardly a hair out place - I would be a mess, sweating, hair everywhere, clothes all over the place.
I bought a woollen scarf when in Paris and lost it a couple years ago - I was distraught - I felt instantly chic and French with that scarf!
I live in Southern Hemisphere so a trip to Paris is not an easy thing!

Until the pandemic regularly used to visit the south of France. Observations about the different pace of life apply even more so there, even in Nice and Cannes.

I remember my first visit to the Cannes Film Festival, chatting away to some French people each day in queues before films. Easy enough to spot other people from the UK other than myself long before they spoke, because of their complete inability to look stylish at all.

I felt a sense of pride when meeting a French politician that he did not know where I came from and had to ask.

@ProfessorLayton1 yes the family I watched did.
We couldn't stop watching. I was fascinated at what came out if the back of their car.

It’s always interesting to see a different place, a place you’re not familiar with, and contrast it with home. I assume that people visiting London would also compare and contrast with their home place.

I do agree on french style thought for older women, it’s something different to here for sure. Another thing that always caught my attention too is the relative lack of obesity compared to UK.

I lived in HK with many expats and yes many French families. Yes, they did sit and eat proper meals. No, they were not all skinny and glamorous. In fact most were similar in shape & style to the Uk population. The Parisians are chic yes, but so are many Londoners.
The only good thing was they don't tend to snack between meals which is probably a good thing.

I walked around quite a lot on Paris and it was a week day, so I saw a lot of office workers too. Even walking to buy their lunch they just had this nonchalant ease about them, which I can contrast against me and my coworkers in London rushing to the nearest Pret to grab a sandwich. It was fascinating!

"The UK is still in Europe! It was the Union we left, we didn't pick ourselves up and move continents you numpty 😅"

Yea. Right. DUH! I do know the difference between Europe the continent and a stupid decision made by people who had no fucking idea of what they were voting for.

UK leaving a single - the biggest in the world! - market was shooting yourself in the foot.

Own it.

I can get on a train tomorrow and be in Paris by lunchtime. And I don't need to stand in the queue for "the rest of the world" at passport control at the airport.

I just feel so sad for all my Brit remainer friends (the only ones I know) who have been cast aside up shits creek without a paddle....

Check this poor guy out what Brexit really means.....

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/21/cambridge-university-astrophysicist-loses-esa-project-role-over-brexit-row-nicholas-walton

It seems an odd thread to crowbar in your political discontent. I voted to remain but I don't go wailing through off topic threads like a little sad sack of misery.

In fairness I don't think we can blame Brexit for people deciding to have a big Mac in their lunch break and pop on their beige shorts and spaghetti strap flowery top as soon as the temperature hits 20 degrees.

That aside it's important to remember that in many countries the people for whom lunch is the main meal of the day (organized around working/school hours, which in turn is organized around the weather principally) will have a bit of bread and cheese (aka a sandwich) in the evening.

Traditional Italian families still working on the long lunch break day (increasingly disappearing) for example- breakfast is a junk food bun, then sure, a full meal at lunch, so dinner (as such) will involve everyone getting what they want out of the fridge and eating it with bread. Or not having anything at all.

How the heck did they drag all that around the theme park all day? Sounds bonkers!

and I’m a Francophile who’s also lived in France…

I love love love the slower pace of life on the continent, hence moving here. I do like France, but Spanish women (at least in Madrid) are everything that French women are + lots of noise. France is too quiet for me! It does have world beating motorway services though, driving across France is a holiday in itself.

Under every bridge on the Seine it smells like toilets. And it smells like continental toilets not your average uk one.
The harassment on the street is pretty grim.
Not very elegant or chic in my book.

I remember seeing people having fairly elaborate looking picnics in weird roadside/central reservation type locations. It was quite common back in the day.

Had absolutely zero harassment when we went to Paris recently. And it's decades since I last went, I fell in love with it all over again. The fact that food was so nice and cheap compared to London , and that was central Paris Will definitely not leave it decades before my next visit.

The comment about some of the goings on at Autoroute rest areas is spot on, and sure, people in Paris and many of the major cities can indeed be "chic" - we tend to dress up a bit above our normal standards and pull the straw out of hair if we are headed up to our nearest big city.

OTHO head into many parts of France profonde and I can promise that these days there can be plenty of "unchicness" on display.......

I love France and I love Paris - and I love people watching in any big European city. However, while I think it's true to say that generally the French spend more time over meals etc, bear in mind that central Paris is an extremely affluent place full of people with well-paid jobs. That is why you see a lot of chic people having elegant lunches.

Paris is much like London in that it has a very affluent and tourist-oriented centre with some incredibly wealthy residential spots, but also has vast sprawling council estates full of poverty and crime.

France in general has some smart, affluent, attractive towns and some really rundown shitty ones - I can assure you if you went into a supermarket off the motorway near an industrial town in Normandy, you would not be struck by how chic and elegant people were. Similarly, you could go to the US and spend a few days in Manhattan and think that everyone was well-dressed and smart and cool, but you'd get a very different impression if you went for a walk round a shopping mall in the mid-west.

I live in France.

A proper meal has at least three courses, sometimes four if you have cheese and dessert, plus coffee afterwards. And yes, it is an event.

I find the difference most noticeable at work. When I worked in London occasionally I used to go for lunch with my colleagues but it was a rarity. Most days I would go out on my own, grab a sandwich or a salad from somewhere and sit in the park. Sometimes if it was raining I would go to the staff canteen and sit on my own reading a book on my Kindle.

In France this is unheard of and would be seen as extremely antisocial. When I am in the office, at around 12 o'clock someone usually announces that they are hungry, and then before too long a group of people go down to the canteen together. Everyone will have at least a main course and a dessert, even if it's only a piece of fruit, and often a starter as well. We take the time to sit together and chat. Afterwards we go to the coffee machine and extend lunch by another 10-15 minutes or so.

When I first arrived I felt like we were spending an enormous amount of time at lunch and on coffee breaks. But I realise now that it is a really important part of the culture and essential for building working relationships with people.

The same applies in a slightly different sense outside the context of work. This really is how French people learn to eat, from birth. Even my son, who is only 14 months old, will have some meat and vegetables for lunch, followed by a piece of bread, a yoghurt and some fruit. This happens at 12 o'clock every day. At 4pm he has what the French call goûter, which for older children is usually some sort of cake, but because he's a baby he has some milk, fruit compote and a little biscuit.

When I have lunch with my in-laws, lunch begins with a drink in the living room - champagne if it is a special occasion, otherwise a soft drink, whisky or port - with some snacks like nuts or cherry tomatoes. Then we move to the dining room where everyone has their allocated place at the table, the table is laid properly for multiple courses with water and wine glasses, and everyone has a cloth napkin. There is a bread basket which is refilled throughout the meal. There is usually a light starter, such as smoked salmon or asparagus. Then there is a main course, which is always meat or fish with a side dish. Then there is cheese, and then dessert. Afterwards we move back to the living room and have coffee and usually a chocolate or two.

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, but even in the evenings if you're just having leftovers, basic rules will be observed. And it's not uncommon to have a main course, cheese/yoghurt and dessert even on a casual Monday evening. It's just that the main course might be Sunday's leftovers, the cheese is whatever you've got in and the dessert is a piece of fruit. Yoghurt is a staple, and often interchangeable with cheese for a casual meal, but not usually for a more formal meal.

Whilst this is true, I do think that even ordinary French people tend to observe certain rules around mealtimes and their relationship with food.

My in laws are probably more affluent/formal than a lot of French people, but I have observed the same things on French exchanges with very ordinary French families living very far from Paris.