Four Frustrating Things About Life in France

When you move to another country, or even if you’re just visiting another country — no matter how lovely the place is — there are going to be things that frustrate the heck out of you. France is no exception. Dealing with the bureaucracy, struggling to speak in a new language and navigating the medical system are all frustrating at times. But there are other day-to-day aspects of life in France that really get under my skin.

Here are a few of my frustrations in France.

Shops and restaurants that close during normal hours

I’ve gotten used to stores and other businesses being closed for lunch between 12 or 12:30 and 2 pm. However, not all businesses close for lunch, so I keep a list of places I frequent along with the hours they are open. What frustrates me is when I check the hours for a business or restaurant on their website and on Google and it says they are open, and then I drive to the establishment only to find a sign saying “Fermé,” meaning closed. Either they’ve gone on vacation for a week, had an emergency or just didn’t feel like going to work that day. If I’m making a special trip, I’ve learned to call ahead and make sure they are going to be open.

The word complete (feminine) or complet (masculine)

Complete is my least favorite French word. It’s the response I receive when I walk into a nice restaurant for lunch at 12:30 without a reservation. It means “we’re full,” as in “you’re not eating here today.” “Complete” is also on the parking garage signs when I’m looking for a place to park in the city on a busy Saturday.

Smelly public toilets with no toilet seats

Finding a clean public toilet in France is often a challenge. And when you gotta go, you gotta go. Fortunately, and at these times unfortunately, I have an acute sense of smell. The public toilets in villages are the worst, as I don’t think anyone is in charge of cleaning them. Your best bet is to have a drink at a café and use their facilities. Boulangeries usually don’t have toilets unless they are more of a restaurant with seating for patrons. Yet even in nice restaurants I’ve found toilets that stink to high heaven. But French toilets have improved over the years. Just eight years ago, I used a toilet in the basement of a Paris cafe that was little more than a hole in the ground.

These days, if I’m fortunate enough to find a clean toilet, it often doesn’t have a toilet seat. This is consider more hygienic and easier to clean, but you better be used to doing squats. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a toilet seat cover in France. In Paris and on road trips, McDonald’s is my go-to. Their toilets are pretty clean and most even have seats.

Websites that don’t work

France is known for its bureaucracy, but I was surprised by how many procedures are still done via paper and post office rather than on a computer, like applying for my medical card called a “carte vitale.” However, more and more French services, like the process for receiving a residency card, doing a driver’s license exchange and renewing a visa have moved online. But that doesn’t mean it’s any easier.

I recently went through the process of registering my residency online and there was one glitch after another stopping me from proceeding to the next step. I wrote to the help line numerous times, and thankfully they helped me navigate through a very unintuitive website.

Shopping online is not much easier. Amazon France is simple, and so is Leroy Merlin and Castorama, the latter two being large home décor and building material stores. But websites for other large French retailers leave a lot to be desired. Manomano sells millions of household products, but their filters are non-existent, so if you’re shopping for a towel bar there is no way of filtering for the length, color, material or anything else. You simply have to look through 250 pages with 80 items on each page, which I’m not willing to do. It’s quicker to do a Google search for what I’m looking for so I can see which retailers have it.

The other frustrating aspect of retail websites is placing the order. I enter my French delivery address, but because I want to use my US credit card, I need to enter my US address for my billing address. However, many sites do not have a place to put a separate billing address. And if they do, the options for the “country” field are either France or every country in Europe, but no USA or “États-Unis.”

My workaround is to enter in the “town” field the city, state and “USA.” That usually works. And if the payment is refused, I call my credit card company for approval. But at this point, I think they are aware of my strange purchasing habits.

If the online retailer has a PayPal option, I use that without any problem. But here’s a tip. If you are buying something in euros, PayPal will default to paying in USD so they can charge you a high rate of exchange. Always select the “change currency” option and pay in euros. Your credit card will give you the best rate of exchange.

One French website that does work well is DoctLib.fr, which is the website for scheduling a doctor’s appointment in France.

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At the end of the day, it’s pointless to get frustrated about the way things are done in another country. Instead, I am learning to accept how things operate in France, and adjust my life accordingly.

P.S. One last frustration. Chateaus, like the one below, that I cannot visit because they are private residencies. Boo hoo.

A private historic residence.