Nightmare in France mixed toilets

[Whattosay81]

Ive been in France for two weeks now and appalled at toilet rules here.

i have two young DD who I cannot let go to the toilets on their own anymore.

Bistro number 1, urinals, a male toilet and a female toilet. Past the urinals!!! So having to take my 8 year of and 11 year old past pissing men to access the toilet.

Restaurant number 2 - mixed sink area, 4 toilets one in male/female and baby changing, one male and one female and one blank. Took them both to the loo - had to put one in blank and one in female as baby changing was full. Then had to stop men in my rudimentary French from trying to use the blank one as my DD was in there, then having to listen to men pee etc and get my daughters out of there ASAP.

just shocked at how toilets are now mixed in France and feel I should warn you all.

Yep,was like this when I went in the 1980s. I love France and am a regular visitor but they've never quite got the hang of public toilets.

Toilets like that are common in France.

We stayed on a campsite in France a few years ago where there was an open air urinal next to the children's playground.

We've found it can be really difficult to find public toilets in towns at all.

My late father really hated this when he visited France a few times
I think he saw similar in a couple of other countries.

if I'm a British prude, so be it, what's wrong with civilised private loos?!

I'm trying to understand how any of this qualifies as a "nightmare". Or why the OP was going to take a 8 year and a 11 year old into baby changing.

Men pee. Men pee in urinals. Men (some of them at least) wash their hands. Men in France speak French.

It's not about the building; mixed loos are part of French culture, always have been.

Who cares? They are having a piss, everyone does it. Its an issue if you make it an issue.

I don’t think it’s OTT reaction. Toilet doors are often very flimsy and just one strong push enough to open them, also some locks only close half way making them easier to open from outside, some children are just not good with locks . It is very upsetting experience when you are on the loo and unknown male is bursting into your cubicle. A few times I was in the situation when a female did this by mistake and it’s not pleasant but when you’re a small child ….

they're much more
open about mixed nudity in France. I've seen French families changing their clothes openly on the beach. Went to a festival in Rouen years ago and on our way in saw about 7 or 8 men peeing up the side of a fence, not even trying to do it discreetly.

It has always been the same in Europe.

Rarely see it here except for the occasional very old bar or restaurant.

That's interesting. A friend bought a wreck of a house in Gascony. We went over for a couple of weeks, staying elsewhere, but made several visits to the house while the work was going on.

I had to explain to the plumber that he'd put the toilet in the wrong place in the main bathroom, and his response was that it had to go there or there wouldn't be room for the walls and door. He was going to make it like a cubicle, but inside the bathroom itself (and ignore what was on the perfectly clear plans).

We were mystified at the time, but if a bog in the room where you bath and shower is a bit frowned upon, perhaps that's why. But it's perfectly normal in French hotels and stuff.

My late DM was highly amused by German toilets, where your poo sits on a sort of shelf inside the pan until you flush.

We went to to Brittany and Ile de Re on our main summer holiday once, and the toilets in smaller restaurants and cafes were like the ones you were in.

The toilets are generally a lot nicer in central Europe.

Few things - the man used the man’s loo.
the disabled loo which was also a man, woman, baby changing room was unoccupied. Neither the man or us used that loo.

I’ve been coming to France (and travelled all over since the 00s, DH since the 80/s and ILs since the 50s) they were equally bemused by the bistro situation.

So are we saying that Britain actually does one thing better than another country? Our toilets are better?

Loos in France have always been mixed in my experience of over 50 years of visiting. I've always viewed it as one of those differences between our 2 cultures: not one I particularly admire, but there you go. Fortunately there has been a move away from the standing, squatting loos which I could never master.

Used to be like that in many places when I lived for a year in Amiens in 1989...

I’ve been to a few places in the UK where the bathrooms were mixed.

There’s a club in Manchester where on one side are female cubicles and the other side male cubicles and urinals and then communal hand washing.

I personally hated it because females chat to other females in bathrooms and you couldn’t really do that as much.

I didn’t feel uncomfortable from a sexual POV but I didn’t like feeling like I couldn’t sort my clothes out or do my make up etc. It just felt weird but I guess it’s because I’m not really used to it.

It’s been like it for years and it’s horrific! I remember 20 years ago mixed showers and toilets in French campsite … the whole place stunk like an old urinal! A middle aged man came out if the toilets and gave me a filthy look really horrible, when I went in the toilet ne’d peed all over the seat and the floor it stank!! I stopped going and never went back. I didn’t want my daughter seeing men pee.

Yes, I remember being horrified by it in the mid 80s, as a rather shy 15 year old (who'd never before left the UK), visiting Brittany on my school exchange trip. Disgusting then and disgusting now, but there's nothing new about it.

There are multiple responses on the thread telling you it's been like this for decades in France.
Don't undermine the very important women's rights cause by making up bullshit about it, please. And FWIW a woman cannot have a penis.

I think you need to re-consider what a 'nightmare' is. Men use a toilet, it won't kill kids to hear that

This thread has actually made me smile. We went to France on holiday every year when our DC were young and me and youngest DD had a rating for every loo that we had the "pleasure" of using 😁. We weren't expecting the Ritz as we were usually staying on campsites but quite often shocked when quite nice restaurants had v down market loos. The last time we went I had the impression that facilities were improving, especially in the services on the motorways, although they didn't seem to have seats on the loos as far as I can recall.

Thankfully the positives about holidaying in France have outweighed the toilets.

This differs to your original post where you wrote:

Took them both to the loo - had to put one in blank and one in female as baby changing was full.

I experienced the shared loos/urinals on mainland European 40 years ago.

Disgusting then and haven't changed my mind since.

Very off-putting.

Definitely not a new thing. I remember 20 years ago going in to a bar on a snowboarding holiday and being suprised to discover I had to walk past the men's urinals to get to the women's toilets.