News, Tips & Bargains : You Will Be Nicer, French Are Told

Only days after the French parliament passed a law proclaiming war on English (making it a punishable offense to use foreign words in advertising, on television or in any official capacity if a French equivalent exists), the French Tourism Ministry launched a campaign to persuade citizens to be nicer to foreigners and address them in their own language with such expressions as “sank you veri meutch.”

“Operation Bonjour” is the latest in a series of official attempts over the past two decades to tackle that sour streak in the fun-loving Gallic character that fuels the foreigners’ cliche: “Great country; too bad about the French.”

The Transport and Tourism Ministry said the dissatisfaction and disappointment of foreigners “have only one source, and it is nothing to do with the countryside and monuments, but with the people. Despite efforts over several years to correct it, this image of a country that does not make a big priority of welcoming people is still spreading abroad.” Too often, foreigners are greeted with “sloppiness, a closed-mindedness and difficulty adapting to new expectations and ignorance of foreign languages and habits,” it said. These charges concerned “the whole population.”

If the campaign works, visitors this summer will find airports, stations, roads, shops and hotels crowded with friendly greeters and decked with logos bidding them “bienvenu.”