Before I get into this week’s topic, a big “bonjour” and “merci” to all my new subscribers as well as my “first followers”. It is a delight to share my French experience with you, based on 54 years of living in France with my French husband. . If that doesn’t give you an insight into another culture, I don’t know what would!
Having Fun While You Disagree
We all get mad or feverishly want to defend our point of view at times, right? The difference between the French and the Americans is that the French can argue baldly and boldly without bringing an end to friendship. After all, France is an old civilization where people have been disgruntled and pas d’accord throughout their long history. For them debate, discussion, discourse and yes, disagreement, are all welcome ways of sorting things out and nothing to take personally which is…
A Major Cultural Difference
In my book Joie de Vivre, I had a field day examining some of the various Franco-American cultural differences. There are many, but I limited them to eight discrete chapters, ranging from Romance, French Style to Les Petits Plaisirs; Life as an Art Form; Having Fun While You Disagree; Hanging Out Without Feeling Guilty; Dressing, Acting, and Pouting Like a Parisienne; The Pleasure of Being a Frenchwoman and Wining and Dining a la Francaise.
Of all these topics, I find that the most intriguing and least understood is how the French can manage to have fun while they disagree.
My New York editor certainly didn’t get it. When I suggested “Secrets of Wining, Dining, Romancing and Squabbling Like the French” as a subtitle for Joie de Vivre, she immediately scratched “squabbling” because of the negative connotation. Her response was very American and exactly why I wrote that chapter because the truth is that ….
The French LOVE to disagree
In America, and I would wager in most Anglo-Saxon countries, people naturally quarrel or get into disputes but they don’t LIKE them or seek them out.
On the contrary, as I wrote in Having Fun While You Disagree: “The French are happiest in strife. They embrace provocation. Looking back on it, I realize that the main reason I decided to make Herculean efforts to speak good French was because a conductor in a train from Calais to Paris spoke to me in a way I didn’t like and I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t speak French well enough to grasp what he was saying …but the expression on his face spoke volumes. I decided he hated me. And I vowed on that day to get myself up to speed…in the ensuing years I’ve had plenty of occasions to spout off in rapid but accented French.”
You may think this sounds infantile or crazy but believe me, it is sheer joy to be able to spar with people for whom disagreements are a national sport, a joy, the spice of life! And where people don’t get out a gun when things get hot!
What Do They Quarrel About? Why Are They Always Bickering?
The French aren’t always bickering or engaged in monumental disputes. But it certainly looks that way especially if you don’t speak French. Just visualize a French person shrugging his or her shoulders in disdain or dismissal, a table of French men and women engaged in a hearty but heated philosophical discussion over their blanquette de veau, or two red-faced chauffeurs de taxi exchanging rapid fire cuss words in language you fortunately don’t comprehend. They’re in various stages of disagreement, but the controvery remains verbal.
One day a student of mine came to class with a downcast expression on his face. He told me that his French host family could not get through a meal without a fight. I asked him to return to the table and try to get to the bottom of that incident or a similar one. He came back to the next class with a huge smile on his face. “You know what they were arguing about?” He paused, then offered the answer as he rolled his eyes: “Whether to accompany the cheese with red wine or white and which one!” The student, who hadn’t understood the words, had been interpreting body language which to him was fearful. And of course gestures ranging from a disdainful shrug of the shoulders to exasperated sighs to the puffing up of chests or forbidding scowls can indeed be impressive and even scary if unaccompanied by words.
Some French Words for Disagreement
How about se disputer, se quereller, râler (bellyache), rouspéter and ronchonner (grouse or grumble). Or (slang) s’engueuler (have a row, bawl someone out) and s’artiller (have a fight). That’s just a start.
A Lucid Look at the French
Remember: France is a country with a long history. General de Gaulle is quoted as saying that the French “have not changed since Julius Caesar described them. Their strengths are “bravery, generosity, unselfishness, impetuosity, curiosity, creativity, the gift they have to adapt to extreme situations. Their weaknesses are a clannic spirit, mutual intolerance, brusque anger, internecine quarrels, the jealousy they feel for the advantages that the others have.
Somehow I have a hard time imagining an American President disserting on his fellow Americans and coming up with such a frank description of their best and worst character traits – especially the worst. Some people say the French are arrogant. If only they could hear or read how the French criticise themselves!
Disagreeing Without Getting Personal
What fascinates me the most is that the French can get into passionate debates and heated arguments without losing their cool. How do they manage? From what I have seen, they disassociate the topic of disagreement from the person (in the best cases of course, otherwise it degenerates but not as quickly as it would between two Americans). One night chez nous I witnessed a fiery exchange of ideas between two of our friends, one on the left of the political spectrum, the other on the right. I thought they were going to kill each other. Mais non. When the debate died down, they raised their glasses for a drink and started talking about something else!
Disagreeing at the Table
Discussions at the dinner table happen more than you might think. When I am with my French family on a country week-end, we spend most of our time at the table. And at that table we not only savor delicious meals, but stimulating conversations which can and do indeed warm up, especially when the subject is politics. One day I complained to my husband about the intensity of it all. Why can’t we have a meal without talking politics? And why so heated? His response: “Not to worry. They are having fun.”
My first reaction was : Are you kidding? Gradually, I came to the conclusion that they obviously consider spending time together and not shaking things up as just plain boring. And the French hate being bored.
One day, after I had been married for several years, I got tired of my husband’s “teasing” and decided that I would be the one to shake things up. In perfect French, I fired back a tart response. Reader, he loved it. It was what he had been looking for! I had at long last acquired the skill set to spar with him - in French. But a warning – it only works as long as the no one oversteps the ground rules (which may seem invisible to the nonFrench but which are definitely there - another French mystery).
So as not to fall into the cliché trap, I must add that when it comes to important political matters such as Vichy or the Dreyfus affair, the French are of course divided. You only need to look at the 1898 illustration by Caran d’Ache in Le Figaro to see that bitter political divisions have nothing to do with ordinary disagreements (caption under top picture – above all, let’s not talk about the Dreyfus affair), (caption in bottom picture – they talked about it.)
Ah, all this is so complicated. But then the French are indeed compliqué. That what makes for their mystery. N’est-ce pas?
Harriet Welty Rochefort is the author of four books and many articles about the French in major publications. Buy her books at
Yes! I finally figured out that this French love of debate was impersonal by watching the twinkle in a French friend's eyes when he needled me and another American woman about our places in society and, of course, about 21st century politics. At least I thought he was needling us. But after having the same experience year after year during our late spring visits to Paris back in the teens, I finally got it: He was really having a lot of fun and wanted us to join in! (He kindly spoke English with us, so I'm sure we missed a lot of nuance.) So much better than friendship-breaking anger!
Yes! I finally figured out that this French love of debate was impersonal by watching the twinkle in a French friend's eyes when he needled me and another American woman about our places in society and, of course, about 21st century politics. At least I thought he was needling us. But after having the same experience year after year during our late spring visits to Paris back in the teens, I finally got it: He was really having a lot of fun and wanted us to join in! (He kindly spoke English with us, so I'm sure we missed a lot of nuance.) So much better than friendship-breaking anger!
You & Philippe could do a two-person traveling show in the States, demonstrating all the above!