Every time I met someone in New York who told me that they had visited Paris, one recurring theme kept coming up: Paris is beautiful but the people are not very nice. I would then ask what transpired for them to reach this unflattering conclusion about Parisians. Many times, they would say:
“I walked into a bakery to order a baguette, and the saleswoman barely answered me. She acted like she didn’t understand what I was saying.” Others often told me: “She spoke French very quickly, I didn’t understand anything. I was lost, but she didn’t care.” Or “she didn’t even answer me. She ignored me and started serving the customer who came after me.”