Paris tell tourists to play them at their own game

FORGET sensible walking shoes, fold-away rain macs and pocket maps — the essential accessory for tourists to Paris this season is “le scowl”.

It should be worn frequently and conspicuously, preferably accompanied by an aggressively protruding bottom lip, an air of bored indifference or a variety of hand gestures all designed to give the finger.

Tourism chiefs in the French capital have decided that “when in Rome” should apply to their city too and there’s no better way for visitors to do like the Parisians than to play it rude.

An advertising campaign aimed at the overseas market encourages tourists not to cower from the legendary plate-slamming waiter, selectively deaf taxi driver or congenitally unhelpful shop assistant but instead to embrace this uniquely Gallic characteristic and give as good as they get.

A step-by-step guide on the visitor website, C’est So Paris (www.cestsoparis.com), starts the uninitiated off with one of the most common and bruising gestures a visitor is likely to be attacked with on their French leave.

The Gallic Shrug requires simultaneously thrusting out your bottom lip, raising your eyebrows and hoisting your shoulders skyward which, if done correctly, should have the effect of telling your intended target: “You are of absolutely no significance and clearly insane if you think I would share breathing space with you a nanosecond longer.”

Other suggested means of communicating mutual loathing include The Camembert, otherwise known as the Ferme-La (shut it), a hand gesture akin to squeezing a chunk of soft cheese which should convey to whoever is gabbing nearby that they should clam up — immediatement.

You could also “faire La Moue” which means to push out both lips and draw them in again quickly while adopting a disappointed expression — a classic pose useful for conveying anything from boredom to annoyance to distaste or disgust.

To be fair, the publicity campaign is more tongue-in-cheek than tongue-sticking-out and it refrains from highlighting the more offensive gestures beloved of striking French farmers.

But fervent Francophiles may be a little perturbed to find it has set a trend among Parisian tourism bosses who have also begun a second campaign aimed at shaking up the city’s traditional image.

Apparently worried that romance, art, architecture, breath-taking boulevards, sumptuous cuisine, fabulous fashion and everything else traditionally associated with Paris may not be enough to lure the tourists anymore, they are running ads poking fun at their own preoccupation with palaces and museums.

This is a new method of communication for the Parisians and may yet come to be known as “taking le mick.”

City of fright: Japanese traumatised by rude Parisians

THE shocking discovery that Parisians can be rude and their city’s streets scruffy has proven too much for Japanese tourists.

An average of a dozen Japanese visitors a year need psychological treatment after visiting the French capital, and find that it fails to meet expectations.

The experience can be so stressful for those among the one million polite Japanese who visit the city annually that they have a psychiatric breakdown.

Last year, Japan’s embassy repatriated at least four visitors who had fallen foul of what is known as ‘Paris Syndrome’.

Two of these were women who believed their rooms had been bugged, while previous cases included a man convinced he was the French Sun King Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves.

Many of the visitors have a deeply romantic vision of Paris, so encounters with waiters who shout or rude taxi drivers can simply be too much.

“Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover, it can provoke a crisis,” according to psychologist Herve Benhamou.

“A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses,” Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at a hospital next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche earlier this year.

The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed Paris Syndrome, was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

The Japanese embassy has a 24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock, and can help find hospital treatment for anyone in need.