Letters: Our French neighbours feel standoffish 

To the Editor,

With reference to your recent piece on French neighbours seeming distant, we have had exactly the same experience:

We have owned our French home for 30 years. Our French neighbours moved in several years after us, but have never once invited us to their home. 

We enjoy a perfectly amicable relationship with the family, and exchange cards and small gifts at Christmas and Easter. 

We had hoped that they would encourage their children to take advantage of our presence to help them with their schoolwork in English, but, despite their mother being a teacher herself, this was never suggested.

It has been suggested that a) the French reserve ‘active’ friendship pretty much for family and those close to them, and b) that children are discouraged from learning from Anglophones, as our true ‘native’ pronunciations are often at odds with what they may be (mis-)taught at school.

Certainly in rural France, reticence on the part of locals is more likely to be due to their knowledge that, sadly, most Brits speak little or no French, and they do not have confidence in their own linguistic abilities – and, to be fair, why should they be expected to make that effort in their own country? 

‘Socialising’ is all very well, but in reality, it does rely on a fairly advanced degree of fluency in the alternate language – ideally on both sides.

Amongst younger French people (who have been extensively taught English in school), and those whose jobs have perhaps involved them in acquiring a working knowledge of English, we have found them to be just as ‘mixed a bunch’ as any equivalent group of Brits; some are really friendly, and cannot do too much to help – and some are not!

Paul D., by email

Do you think French people seem distant? Is this different to how things are in the UK? Share your experience at letters@connexionfrance.com