Maybe why the French are so particular about manners, that is. I’ve mentioned before that using “bonjour,” “s’il vous plait,” “merci” and “au revoir” are requirements to be polite in France. Failure to use bonjour in particular can result, in some cases, of you not even being acknowledged as being in the room. In the United States, one can skip politeness to an extent and still be thought fine, polite even. This doesn’t happen in France, and I think I have discovered why this is so.
Looking back a few centuries, France was an absolute monarchy, with nobility running around trying to stay that way, a well-entrenched church taking up the middle tier, and everybody else, whatever their profession or station, mucking about on the bottom. Then came the revolution of 1789, which you’ve probably read about. It got pretty ugly, and not just because of the terror. The revolutionaries invented a new calendar, ran the nobility out of the country (the lucky ones, that is) and also came up with new ways to greet each other. This reminds me of the way the Communists in the Soviet Union were all “comrades.” Sure, they were. Anyway, what with Napoleon, a second republic, a restoration, a second Napoleon (III?) and then into a third republic, a lot of the more nonsensical revolutionary ideas were discarded. For instance, France uses the same calendar as everybody else. But, this still left an open question: if we believe in egalité, (we’re all equal), how do we address one another? Good one, when you think about it.
Well, consider how one would address a noble, should one not be of that class. First, you would wish them “good day.” That was, originally, bon jour. Bon jour still means, technically, “good day,” but nobody uses it for that, because bonjour has meant “hello” for so long that a new term, bon journée, was adapted to mean “have a nice day” or words to that effect. A journée was originally a day trip, such as one might take to a neighboring village to visit the market there. Now French people get to wrestle with the difference between jour and journée. Lucky them. Next, if you want anything from that noble, you say please, which is written s’il vous plait. It sounds more like see voo play, because, well, that’s for another time. When they’ve helped, you say thank you, or merci. And before you part ways, you politely tell them, one way or another, how happy you are to have interacted with a noble, and that is au revoir, which literally means ‘until we see each other again!” You can just say it like “oh vwah” and nobody will complain.
And, there’s more! The word monsieur, taken to mean “mister,” is a compound of mon sieur, which literally means “my lord.” Similarly, madame, or ma’am in the US, is a compound of ma dame, or “my lady.” So when you say Bonjour, madame, you are saying, and this is true, “Good day, my lady!” How’s that for respect?
In short, whereas in the US we decided in favor of everyone being a commoner, in France, they opted for everyone being nobility. It’s as simple as that. If the President of France wants to talk to some poor beggar on the street, they’ll start with a bonjour. That poor beggar is, in spite of appearances, a noble, and deserving of respect. Therefore, one must deliver, and may expect, respectful terms of address in any interaction. If a French person doesn’t receive respect, they won’t be very polite in return.
And there it is. There are exceptions, of course, especially in heavily touristed areas, but in a nutshell, that’s why you always must be respectful of a French person, even a pimply-faced ice-cream vendor. The upside is, that, if you are, you will be respected in return, and undoubtedly enjoy your French vacation a great deal more than you would have other wise.
