I've visited France (Paris mostly) in the off season and found it a great experience. In general people were as friendly or helpful as any other large city I've been in.
I can imagine when tourists are clogging up everything people's tempers get short (I know mine do and I live near a major tourist friendly city). Anybody who wasn't overtly friendly was at least reasonably professional and I can't recall any specifically negative interaction with any French person during my stay. Language was sometimes a barrier, but nearly everybody we interacted with was patient and kind with our terrible abuse of our few French words.
I remember one evening trying to find a certain restaurant, my wife stopped a lady out on her evening exercise/walk and asked for directions. This lovely Parisian woman not only offered directions, but made a better restaurant recommendation, walked us the dozen or so blocks over to it and made arrangements with the staff to let us dine there even without proper reservations.
Every place has some bad things as well, things that can be constructively criticized. I'm an American and it's pretty obvious we screw up all kinds of things and those things are worthy of comment or criticism, France is no different in that respect.
France is beautiful, the people are great and I came away very impressed with the country and the people. I also learned a lot and came away with new perspectives on many things I had taken for granted before. French citizens have a tremendous amount to be proud of.
I can imagine when tourists are clogging up everything people's tempers get short (I know mine do and I live near a major tourist friendly city). Anybody who wasn't overtly friendly was at least reasonably professional and I can't recall any specifically negative interaction with any French person during my stay. Language was sometimes a barrier, but nearly everybody we interacted with was patient and kind with our terrible abuse of our few French words.
I remember one evening trying to find a certain restaurant, my wife stopped a lady out on her evening exercise/walk and asked for directions. This lovely Parisian woman not only offered directions, but made a better restaurant recommendation, walked us the dozen or so blocks over to it and made arrangements with the staff to let us dine there even without proper reservations.
Every place has some bad things as well, things that can be constructively criticized. I'm an American and it's pretty obvious we screw up all kinds of things and those things are worthy of comment or criticism, France is no different in that respect.
France is beautiful, the people are great and I came away very impressed with the country and the people. I also learned a lot and came away with new perspectives on many things I had taken for granted before. French citizens have a tremendous amount to be proud of.