Hi everyone,
I am French,, have studies cross-cultural communication and have lived in several different countries in the world. Therefore I've been asking myself a lot the question you're raising here.
By travelling around, I have noticed that some people of some countries were more easily approachable than others and are instantly friendly with me (in Australia, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Vietnam for example), while others seemed colder at first sight (in Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania, Bolivia or some part of Chile for example).
However I've learnt this doesn't mean these people are less friendly on the long run. In fact, in many occasions, I actually managed to create deeper bonds with them than with people who had been instantly very friendly and open, but kept things on a superficial level and didn't truly care about me.
For some very sociable and open countries, it is easy for tourists to "bond" with people because you get there and they're smiling and asking you how you're going and then you're friends with them and all is well. There's no deep effort of understanding or adaptation to be made on your part, and oftentimes they're adapting to you.
However when you go to countries that have a fundamentally different approach to social relationships, you need to do your homework (which is what Sword is trying to do here). When you learn how to approach French people the right way (and to address the RIGHT TYPE of people), you'll notice French people can be actually very nice people. France is an old country and a complex society, so I can't give you a full analysis of French culture on one forum post, but here are a few things to keep in mind:
1) Paris is NOT like the rest of France. I was born and raised in Paris and I can tell you that the majority of people there come from other regions of France and have come here for work because they couldn't get the same opportunities in their hometown. A lot of them get stressed but the pace of the capital, have to commute 2h a day, miss home and are pressured at work. As a result, they look unhappy in the subway. Other people see their unhappy face and if they weren't already unhappy, get even unhappier because moods are contagious. This starts a cycle of negative emotions further fueled by pressure at work, high cost of living etc.
As a result, many Parisians don't feel a sense of belonging to that city, and when millions of tourists arrive every year, they don't really feel like acting like a guide, quite the opposite. Tourists arrive and see as a dream place a city which for many Parisians means constant pressure and daily commuting nightmare. There's a dichotomy which many time creates an unfriendly experience.
