Respect

n. – respect
Rules in France are truly meant to be broken. Lines are meant to be cut and subway turnstiles are meant to be jumped. For this reason the latter are designed to challenge only the most acrobatic. I have trouble getting though their double barriers myself even though I pay. For those less agile, there’s always the method of squeezing behind the person in front thereby piggybacking on their ride, but this invasion of personal space is frowned upon slightly more. If they had the same system here as they do in Germany where there are no turnstiles, nobody would ever pay for a metro ticket.

When it comes to parking on the street, many people would prefer taking the chance of risking a ticket than paying. They figure with the law of averages, they’ll end up paying less in the long run since the tickets aren’t that expensive. Breaking the rules is often not only embraced, but even encouraged. A good example of this happened the other day to a friend of mine visiting from the US.

She is quite small for her age, in fact although she is twenty-two, she could easily pass for sixteen or even less. As she entered a museum, the man behind the ticket counter assumed she was younger and started to give her a half priced ticket, but she told him her real age. Since people under twenty-five are still entitled to certain discounts here, he asked her if she lived in Europe to which she responded truthfully that she did not. He rolled his eyes and shook his head as if to say, I gave you every chance to break the rules and you failed. He was truly disappointed in her.

Of course I generalize to make a point. Many people do not break the rules and to clarify for the ones who do, it’s not so much a question of dishonesty, but rather entitlement. They make their own exceptions, as is often the case with the language itself, to justify their behavior. They will question a speeding ticket or driving infraction far more than an American would. Perhaps it’s because they’re less intimidated by authority or perhaps it’s simply because it’s in their nature to not go down without a fight.

It’s that pluckiness that often makes for interesting and challenging dinner conversations. And when questioning or even arguing a point, the French almost always remain polite and even formal. Once when a women felt that my husband had cut in front of her while driving (he didn’t), she pulled up along side us, rolled her window down and using the formal tense, told him, “Vous êtes un vrai con, Monsieur!” (You are a real asshole, Sir!), to which he responded, “Vous aussi, Madame!” (You are too, Madam!). I loved that two grown people could swear at each other in a civilized fashion. And it’s that civility that makes the French unique. Liberté, égalité, fraternité and above all, respect, if not for the rules, at least for one another.