The French are the oldest and most distinctive nation in Europe, with a rich history and cultural heritage. The French are a reserved, reasonable and prudent people. They are very friendly and polite, but they will never tell the truth to your face.
The French, as a rule, learn and know foreign languages, but are extremely reluctant to speak them with foreigners. Most French people do not like English speech, so if you do not know French, it is better to immediately say that you are Russian. The French are very sensitive to mistakes in the French language.
The generally accepted form of greeting is a light handshake. Meetings should be arranged in advance. Being late is considered impolite. However, the general rule is: the higher the status of the guest, the more lateness is tolerated. An invitation to visit for dinner means special affection for you
Only after talking on a neutral topic can you move on to the main thing, otherwise it will be considered bad form; the French do not like to immediately touch on the main issue, this is especially important to take into account when conducting business negotiations.
In general, the behavior of the French is very varied. They gracefully defend their point of view, their position, but are not inclined to bargain. Conversations begin quickly and naturally, and the French speak at one of the fastest speeds in the world.
For the French, education, general level of knowledge, and erudition are of great importance. They are rightfully proud of their culture. A good understanding of history, philosophy, and art are highly valued. Accordingly, gifts that meet intellectual needs or a sense of beauty will be well received (for example, books or art albums). Although a box of chocolates and flowers for the hostess would also be appropriate.
The meal must be accompanied by an interesting conversation. The French at the table prefer to talk about culture, art and French cuisine - the national pride of every Frenchman. It is not customary for the French to make lengthy toasts at the table. It is not customary to clink glasses. Traditionally, lunch for the French starts at 18.00-19.00, so if you are invited to lunch, know that you are expected at this time.
Features of French cuisine
Cooking is a special pride of the French. The names of hundreds of dishes came to us from the French language: cutlets, sauce, mayonnaise, omelet, entrecote - all these are French words. But the French’s notorious love for frog meat is a clear exaggeration. Frog meat is indeed present in the rich range of dishes of French cuisine, but it cannot be called an everyday dish for a Frenchman. Grape snails with herbs and spices are somewhat more often eaten (of which there are sometimes so many that you can’t even distinguish the taste of the snail).
All over the world they talk about French cuisine as the most diverse and refined. In addition, almost every region of France, every city, every restaurant has its own unique set of dishes. France produces more than 300 different types of cheese, famous all over the world.
A characteristic feature of the French diet is the abundance of vegetables and root vegetables on the dinner table. Potatoes, various varieties of onions, green beans, spinach, cabbage of various varieties, tomatoes, eggplants, celery, parsley, salads - this is not a complete list of vegetables from which salads, snacks, and side dishes are prepared.
Residents of the southern regions of France have their favorite dishes, which are distinguished by their spiciness due to the use of large quantities of spices (garlic and onions). Residents of Alsace are lovers of pork and cabbage. Residents of coastal areas cannot imagine their diet without seafood dishes.
Regional differences in nutrition are felt even in different attitudes towards fats: in the north they like butter, in the south they like olive oil. Each region of France has its own specialties: liver pates, Bayonne hams, sausages and beans in a pot (“Toulouse”), Provençal tomatoes.
Cold dishes and snacks - stuffed cucumbers, vegetable salads, celery salad and others.
First courses - leek soup with potatoes, onion soup seasoned with cheese, clear soups with beef broth, dressing soups, solyanka, Provençal fish soup, fish soup.
The second courses are steak with deep-fried potatoes and steak rare with a slightly fried crust and almost raw inside. These two dishes are the epitome of French cuisine. The French like their meat not to be overcooked; it should retain its pink juice. White meat stew with white sauce is common.
The French are very sensitive to all kinds of taste nuances. Therefore, if you are preparing a treat in the form of a small game dish, it must be kept in the air for several days, and the meat of wild boar and roe deer must be marinated. The French add small bunches of herbs such as parsley, savory, and bay leaves into soups and sauces. Before serving, the bundle is removed from the food.
Second courses include sea and freshwater fish (cod, flounder, halibut, mackerel, pike, carp), seafood - shrimp, lobsters, scallops.
The French are true gourmets when it comes to sauces, which are always served not only with meat and fish main courses, but also with salads and various cold appetizers.
After the second course, cheese is served on the table, and several varieties at once. You can drink cheese only with white or red wine, and in no case with juice or Coca-Cola.
Dessert - fresh fruits and berries, fruit salads, confectionery, especially with nut fillings such as praline, ice cream with fruit and cookies, bowls, dessert cocktails.
The French diet includes two breakfasts. First breakfast - fruit and vegetable juices, eggs, cheese, butter, omelettes (with jam, ham, cheese, mushrooms, herbs, stuffed tomatoes and other side dishes). Second breakfast (at 12 o'clock) - cold appetizers from seafood and fish, poultry, stuffed or stewed vegetables, hot dishes of simple preparation.
Lunch (from 18 to 19 hours) - any snacks of European cuisine, soups, main courses.
France is the world's leading wine producer, and the French are very proud of their brands of this wonderful drink. There are about 300 different grape varieties used in wine production.
Champagne was developed by Abbot Don Perignon as a result of numerous selection and blending experiments. Champagne is produced in two main areas of the Champagne region - Montagne de Reims, where the excellent Pilot Noir grapes are grown and the Cote de Blaye, where the Chardonnay variety dominates. Champagne producing companies still constitute the elite of the wine industry.
Cognac is a strong alcoholic drink that belongs to one of the types of grape brandy. It is prepared from cognac alcohol obtained by distillation from unalcoholized young and healthy white grape wines, followed by aging the distillation in oak barrels. Armagnac, similar in name, is a different type, with a thicker consistency than cognac. Its taste is less refined, and it is also drier. Cognac is produced in a specific and legally limited area of the city of Cognac, located in southwestern France, 500 km from Paris.
According to a Catholic World News poll in January 2007: 51% of respondents are Catholics, 31% are agnostics or atheists. (Another survey gives the proportion of atheists as 27%), 10% follow other religions or have no opinion, 4% identify as Muslim, 3% identify as Protestant, 1% identify as Jewish.
According to the latest Evobarometer survey in 2005, 34% of French citizens responded that they “believe that God exists,” while 27% responded that they “believed in some kind of fortitude or living force” and 33% “ do not believe in the existence of any kind of spirit, God, or living force."
Another study indicates that 32% of people in France classified themselves as an atheist, while another 32% classified themselves as “skeptical about the existence of God, but not an atheist.”
Existing Jewish community in France has approximately 600 thousand people according to the World Jewish Congress and is the largest in Europe. Estimates of the number of Muslims in France vary widely.
According to the French census in 1999, there were only 3.7 million people of "possible Muslim faith" in France (6.3% of the total population). In 2003, the French Ministry of the Interior estimated the total number of Muslims at 5-6 million.
Presumably 200 thousand people out of 1 million illegal immigrants live in France.
The concept of secularism has existed in France since 1905. French government It is legally forbidden to recognize any religion (with the exception of the statutes of inheritance of military chaplains and Alsace-Moselle).
Instead it simply acknowledges religious organizations, according to formal legal criteria that do not appeal to religious doctrine. Conversely, religious organizations should refrain from interfering in the development of tactics.
Tensions sometimes erupt over alleged discrimination against minorities, especially Muslims.
Catholicism in France
France has traditionally been a Catholic country, and today approximately 80% of the French population adheres, at least formally, to the Catholic religion.
In reality, however, France is a very secular country that has played the role of organized religion in the lives of people in France since the revolutions in the 1780s and 1804s.
Many French people who were considered Catholics were not actually Catholics. Most Catholics in France do not go to church regularly or at all.
Catholic Church in France is seen as very progressive and keeps pace with changes in modern society. Former Archbishop of Paris since 1981, Jean Marie Lustiger, was born into a Jewish family in Paris in 1926 and converted to the Catholic religion at the age of 14.
Islam in France
Islam is the second largest religion in Europe. Currently, approximately five million Muslims in France practice Islam, many of them from North Africa.
Muslims first began immigrating to France in large numbers during the 1950s and 1960s, when France needed labor to sustain an economic boom.
Muslim community in France was at the center of central controversies, including various attacks from right-wing political groups during the 1980s, and later faced a ban on practicing Islam in French public schools.
Many French North African Muslims complain of harassment and discrimination by police and employers.
Protestantism in France
Protestantism is practiced by approximately one million French people in France. Called Huguenots, Protestants in France were severely persecuted by the Catholic Government in France during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Protestants of France live mainly in the southeastern part of the Massif Central, near the Jura and Alsace mountains in northern France.
John Calvin, a famous reformer of the Protestant religion was born in Northern France in 1509 and studied in Paris; however, he spent most of his adult life living and working in Geneva.
Judaism in France
There was a Jewish community in France dating back to Roman times, but it was largely erased during the Middle Ages when it was persecuted and eventually abandoned.
French Jews were first granted full citizenship in 1790, and, beginning in 1808, the Jewish community organized a group called the "Consistoire" to serve their interests.
Today this group numbers approximately 650,000 Jews in France, many of whom are recent immigrants who arrived from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia during the 1960s.
In France, the predominant religion is Catholicism. 84% of French people are Catholics, although this number also includes those who broke with religion but were baptized in the Catholic rite from birth.
About 2% of the French are Protestants, the rest of the believing population belongs to various sects.
The number of atheists is growing rapidly in France. Nowadays only 4 French people attend Sunday mass. This figure is average. The religiosity of the population varies in different social strata and regions of the country. The influence of the Catholic Church is still strong in Brittany, Vendee, in certain departments of the Massif Central, Alsace, Lorraine, Savoy, as well as in the Basque region.
In rural areas, the religiosity of the population is higher than in the city.
The French Church, considered “avant-garde” in the Catholic world, led the search for new religious, political and ideological concepts that would allow it to adapt to the modern era and keep working people in its sphere of influence. Criticizing capitalism and allegedly defending the vital interests of the working people, the French church calls for the reconciliation of classes, for the subordination of the labor movement to the “common interest”, for the association of labor and capital.
The French clergy strives to demonstrate solidarity with the working masses. Nowadays bishops can be found among the striking workers.
France for centuries was an active Catholic state, Catholicism was the state religion, and non-believers, like Huguenots (Protestants), were dealt with bloodily. The papacy constantly focused on the French kings as the most powerful Catholics in the world, initiating the Crusades together. Moreover, the 14th century went down in history as the time of the so-called Avignon captivity of the popes, when the heirs of St. Peter sat not in Rome, but in French Avignon. But these times and events have sunk into oblivion, and today France is a secular state where religion is clearly separated from politics. Freedom of belief is considered an unshakable constitutional right, although, at the same time, some religious organizations are recognized as cults at the state level.
So, the most numerous religion in France is considered to be Catholic Christianity. More than 75% consider themselves Catholics, but at the same time, much less actually regularly attend churches and perform all rituals.
The modern Catholic Church of France is far from being the retrograde, frigid and conservative institution it was in the 17th century.
In addition to being truly liberal and tolerant of other faiths, the Catholic Church has become more flexible. For example, in 1981, Jean Marie Lustiger, who came from a Jewish family but converted to Catholicism when he was still 14 years old, was elected Archbishop of Paris.
From the old days of the rise and flowering of the Catholic Church in France, numerous cathedrals, churches and baptisteries remain today. They are truly not just houses for prayer, but real masterpieces of architectural and decorative art. The beauty of French cathedrals was described by many world writers, among them Victor Hugo with the famous “Notre Dame Cathedral”.
Another popular branch of Christianity in France is Protestantism. Most of Martin Luther's followers live in the southeastern part of the Massif Central, near the Jura and Alsace mountains in northern France. Moreover, despite the initial aggressiveness of French Catholics towards Protestants in the 16th century, ironically, it was this country that became the birthplace of one of the most famous Protestants, a pastor in whose honor an entire movement in Protestantism was named - John Calvin.
He was born in 1509 in the lands of Northern France, although his main and most active period of life passed in Geneva.
In addition to Christianity, France today has a large Muslim community. Islam today has become the second largest religion in all of Europe. In France specifically, there are close to 5 million Muslims living today, which is growing rapidly. In fact, most French Muslims came to the country from North Africa.
The third large religious community is the Jews. They lived on the territory of France since Roman times, but during the times of persecution of infidels and during the years of the Inquisition, they were expelled en masse from the country.
It was only in 1790 that the first Jews of French origin received citizenship, although for many years there was anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jews in the country's society.
The French, especially Parisians, can be phenomenally rude - if they want to. And there is nothing here from the accidental rudeness of representatives of other nationalities. If the French behave rudely, it means that they believe that in this case it is necessary.
In particular, the French take particular pleasure in being rude to complete strangers. If you accidentally dial the wrong phone number, you can be sure that a whole tub of angry insults will be poured on you. Insults are also often exchanged among friends, but without any particular damage to their relationship. In England, for example, if you offend someone, it is an insult for life. But the French can inflict monstrous insults on each other and the next day act as if nothing had happened.
Etiquette
The French are extremely sociable, but they value their own private life and protect it in every possible way. They jealously guard their rights to sacred moments of reflection, to nightly family discussions, to the opportunity to sit alone at a cafe table, staring into a glass of their favorite Pernod and not thinking that life is passing by.
They strictly observe the necessary rules of etiquette and ensure that certain things are never done in public. It is not customary here for men to comb their hair on the street and for women to fix their makeup. No matter how hot the day is, a Frenchman walking down the street; will never take off his jacket or untie his tie; his clothes will always be in perfect order.
Once, the French parliament seriously discussed for quite a long time the question of whether a man whose head rises above the walls of a street urinal should raise his hat and greet a woman he knows if she passes by at that moment.
French buses and subways have special seats for war veterans and pregnant women. And if some impudent person with chewing gum in his mouth plops down on such a seat, he will quickly be asked to stand up by the one for whom it is intended, while enjoying the obvious moral support of all other passengers.
The French respect the living space of others, respecting, first of all, their own living space and carefully determining what functions they perform within these specific limits - they do this not because someone is watching them, but they are confident that anyone You might want to keep an eye on them. So if, for example, an Englishman driving, caught in a traffic jam, begins to pick his nose out of boredom, then a Frenchman in such a situation immediately begins to preen himself, looking at himself in the car mirror: carefully adjusting the knot of his tie, combing his hair, smoothing his ruffled eyebrows or mustache . Such differences in behavior are also a matter of style.
The only exception is the sacred process of emptying the Bladder for French men. The French allow themselves to urinate anywhere - on the side of the road (either turning away from oncoming traffic or facing it), in rivers, lakes and canals, approaching any tree, bush or lamppost, at the back wall of a store, garage or train station. They carry out this process while smoking, talking, fishing, working in the garden, repairing the carburetor of their car, mixing concrete, or walking a horse after a ride.
One person came to France on vacation. And then one day, late in the evening, closer to midnight, having had a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant and drinking a lot of good wine, he felt that life was infinitely beautiful. The sea was enveloped in peace and quiet, the full moon was shining in the sky, and it seemed to our hero that he was almost in paradise - as far as this is possible, of course, in our world. And then three Frenchmen suddenly emerge from the darkness and, right in front of his nose, begin... urinating straight into the sea!
The charm of the lovely night disappeared like smoke. But what shocked this man most was how cordially all three of them wished him “Bonne nuit” (“Good night!”) and walked away, zipping up their trousers.
Greetings
Foreigners are often unable to correctly understand and appreciate the French habit of strictly performing the necessary ritual of greeting each other, shaking hands with literally everyone (family members, children, strangers) - at home, on the way to work, arriving at work, leaving with work home, on the way home from work, etc. In an office where ten or twelve people work, for the first half hour no one works at all - those who have not seen each other since yesterday joyfully remind each other who they are.
However, it is also very important to remember with whom you have already shaken hands during the day. The French consider it a sign of extreme bad manners to shake someone's hand twice in a day, as if you simply didn't notice the person the first time.
Here it is still customary to say “bonjour” (good afternoon) and “orevoir” (goodbye) to everyone present when entering and leaving a store or cafe. And this does not mean that the French are too polite. They simply recognize that there are other people, thereby finding an opportunity to do without excessive rudeness.
In some stores the owner is supposed to say: “Bonjour, monsieur” (Good afternoon, monsieur), in others he should say: “ Bonjour, monsieur. Ça va? (“Good afternoon, monsieur. Are you okay?”); There are also those where a more subtle approach is needed: “ Bonjour, monsieur Ça va?...” (“Good afternoon, monsieur. Well, how are you doing?...”) And there are a great many similar options.
Some may think that there is not much difference here, but for the French, the subtle nuances of different greetings are extremely important. In general, manners, from the point of view of the French, are civilization. They are confident that without strictly established frameworks and norms of behavior, the wild primitive will certainly take precedence over civilization.
But kisses do not play as significant a role in the social life of the French as is commonly believed. But if you do kiss, then the kiss must be done properly, in full accordance with the rules.
And these rules are as follows: first you lightly touch the left cheek, then the right and again the left - very formal, very stylized. In Paris, four kisses are sometimes allowed: left cheek, right, left, right. Woe to that careless, unbridled foreigner who first touches his right cheek when he should touch his left! Or, God forbid, he allows himself too intimate contact: he touches his cheek with his lips. The French welcome kiss - unlike the "French kiss" - is a very relative concept.
The urgent need of the French to shake hands with all the people they know sometimes terribly burdens their personal lives. Imagine: a beach near Biarritz; On the clean sand, with nice bathing towels laid under them, eight Frenchmen lie and sunbathe. The ninth one approaches them. All eight stand and shake his hand or give him a friendly hug. Then all nine lie down on the sand again. And then the tenth appears. Nine people immediately jump up to greet him, and this nightmare continues until the beach party grows to twenty-three people. Naturally, these twenty-three Frenchmen were unlikely to be able to tan at all.
"You" and "you"
One of the few things that most people learn about the French right away is that French has two second-person pronouns (“you” and “you”), which in English are represented by one “ you" But clearly no one has been able to properly grasp when and which of these two pronouns should be used.
Of course, it is perfectly acceptable, from a politeness point of view, to say “you” to a dog, even if you don’t know him at all. However, for the sake of safety, never say “you” to a Frenchman until he himself addresses you as “you” - if in France they start “poking” you, then you are admitted into the holy of holies of the French, into their private life, they completely trust you and bestowed the title of close friend.
"You" is not just a grammatical form. This is a very important, although elusive, social sign. There are people to whom it is simply impossible to address on a first-name basis, just as it is impossible to get Foreign Legion soldiers knitting or force a French baker to sell English marmalade.
By the way, in some French families, spouses never say “you” to each other throughout their long life together.
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