French Culture vs. American Culture: Key mindset differences according to research!

France vs. USA Culture according to research! Why the French culture and American culture can seem so opposing at times + key cultural differences between US and France in business!

French vs American Culture comparison is a tale as old as time! In this video, I dive into the latest cultural research and data to explain why their behaviours may appear to be so different!

AS MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO:

Do you have experience with French American cultural differences? Any other French culture vs American points you'd like to share? Let us know down below!

#frenchculturevsamericanculture #francevsUSAculture #francevsUSA
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[natachad]

As a French, studying in Danemark was a nightmare, espcially in groupwork. I knew I loved my debate mais MON DIEU, I found a nation even more into debating that we are !

[shatterquartz]

Although Americans like in theory to take risks, the way their health system is set up means that, in practice, lots of them are stuck in jobs they don't dare quit because they would lose what coverage they have. In France (and generally every developed country that isn't the US), since health care access isn't an issue, people have more practical freedom to pursue their professional calling.

[TheFrandall]

I'm a geek cuz I watched till the end! Thoroughly enjoyed these thoughts on the 2 cultures. As an American, I agree with you that we're about the time is money and getter done mentality. One thing that always puzzles me is that in my experience, the higher ups in the workplace/ company never ask the workers what can we do differently to to support you or to help make your work more efficient. It's as though they think they see it all and know it all and they come up with new ways for the workers to do things that are mostly not helpful but make them feel good, often creating more inefficiency and bog people down with rules and busywork. I'd like to see more teamwork between the stratas in the hierarchy.

[jrgilmore]

So if you find the American culture to be very direct, you'll need a whole new scale for Germans ;)

[angiefranks]

I've been watching Emily in Paris and it's made me even more curious about the French cultural differences. I love cultures in general.Just fasinating.Thanks for your informative and entertaining video.🙂

[SlackSlackSlackSlack]

After 14 years working for an American compagny And now back to a French one, I suffer tremendously 😣. It is time consuming doing nothing except ego massage, sorry political way to say it would be “taking care if your network” it is not based on performance but on who likes you..

[willardroad]

Old American businessman here. This is one of the best videos I have watched on the differences between the two cultures. I regularly help foreign business people understand how to operate in the US. I am going to recommend to my colleagues and clients that they watch this video. Good job!

[lesfreresdelaquote]

I'm sorry and I usually like your site... But this time, argh... I worked for an American company for 22 years, I also studied linguistics in Canada, where I did my PhD, and I worked in England as well. First the implicit/explicit notion is totally bizarre. For a Frenchman, American communication style is full of implicit stuff, which takes for ages to decipher. I remember for instance, the first time some colleagues were fired, the formulation was that they were considered redundant??? An other example is when you propose something and the person responds: "it is interesting", which usually means: it is not worth it. Languages are full of these implicit elements of language, which a native speaker will decipher immediately but will be opaque to a foreigner. The problem is that the kind of book you mention takes Anglo-saxon culture as a reference point and compares the rest of the world to it, and the authors simply overlook the implicit nature of their language, because they speak it. When I was in Canada, I often had conversation with people who would say things such as: we Québécois are much more straightforward and natural than you Europeans, taking their culture as a reference and understanding my own culture as a weird unnatural derivation of theirs.
The last point is: please refrain from stating this old lantern that English has 7 times more words than French, it is totally misleading. The size of the lexicon in both languages is much larger than the number of words that people usually know passively or actively. The English culture puts a lot of emphasis in the size of your vocabulary, and we put more emphasis on the grammar. But, nobody knows every single word in the French language, that would be insane. When you say that English has a lot more words than French, it is a projection of what it means to be cultured in your society onto French. If our vocabulary size was an issue, why are we that obsessed with the "mot juste"? The rules to consider a word to be part of English are different from the one in French. In English, it suffices that a word has been printed once in a book or in an article to make it a word of English. Furthermore, very old words which are no longer used or understood are still part of the official lexicon. In the French tradition, old words are usually kept in separate syllabus (Trésor de la langue française) and trimmed from official dictionaries.

[Frahamen]

You think FRENCH are time flexible? You clearly never been to Brazil...

[MrHyperdant]

Rosie, about the "cadre" and "non cadre", you should also state that the requirement are different.


The "Cadre" category is not under the same regime as the non cadre, with generally more responsabilities associated.

When we talk about the 35 hours/week (or 37), it's only for the non cadre jobs.
Most of the "cadre" are under a "day package", which means that you work 218 days per year, and you are supposed to adapt the working hour to your job. Which mean, basically not paid overtime, but also recovery days for that overtime (basically 11-1days /years), but also more flexibility, you can't be taxed of being late for 5min and so on.


There is also some technical specification about retirement pension and unemployement that are different for cadre and non cadre, since you are not taxed the same way on your income.


In france, you have 2 types (in fact 3 but we'll keep it simple) of jobs contracts. The permanent position contract, and fixed term contract. I've never hear of a cadre with a fixed-term contract.
So the vast majority of cadre would have a permanent job contract (but with a 4 mont max trial period).



Most of the higher education diploma (like engineer for instance) only let you work under the cadre regime.


That does not mean that all higher education degree work under the cadre regime.
Many lawyer and MD are like entrepeneur (we call it "profession libérale") and have a very different tax regime from regular employee.


Just by re-reading what i've said, my god, this look complicated...

[mirunapopescu]

The French are the only ones who go collectively on vacation in August? In Romania everything is closed in August too. With some exceptions nothing moves. Tbh I think it's pretty common in Europe.

[HeathHop]

I can't speak for all of the Americans, but in my industry and my company, we have frequent team building days, team lunches, and coffee breaks together. Meetings always start with some friendly catch up and chit chat, and while things like deadlines and outcomes are important, we really value our company culture and family-like atmosphere. Our CEO also values work-life balance and gives us plenty of PTO, travel benefits, extra floating holidays, flexible working hours, and other benefits like bringing our dogs to work, etc. We have great benefits and are not only allowed to take plenty of vacation, but we are actively encouraged to take it. I think it's hard to nail down a culture like that, especially for a country with over 300 million people and a land area larger than the entirety of Europe. Things are very different here on the West Coast than they are in, say, the Northeast, or the South, or the Midwest, etc. That said, interesting points.

[isabelab]

I worked for a large USMNC with large operations in France. I spent enough time to get to know my counterparts and developed great working relationships. It made it so much more efficient.
I come from PR with many of the similar cultural experiences but went to University in the US and have worked in the US my entire career. So although I have the same task driven experience, i believed in developing relationships...so i think that someone who can navigate both work environments fluidly definitely has advantages

[marinelab]

It may be true that American are more individualistic at work, but I found United States much more collective in their personal lives. For instance, it is very rare to find people that are not part of a community, whether it is a religious one(a particular church), a school (college sweater), a team, a gender, a political group etc.... Status defines people and they tend to stay in their community (except in the military which is actually the biggest melting pot).

[LegendOfKitty]

My background is in anthropology and I found this video to be really interesting and helpful. I'm traveling to Toulouse soon and wanted to understand French culture before I left, and this really helped. Thanks!

[DanicaChristin]

Super interesting video, especially at the end about the "cadre" positions. As a German I have always found Americans/Australians/etc to be very implicit in their communication though I agree with you that their working style is pretty straightforward

[markholm]

Very Interesting. I have worked for the US federal government - it’s a subset of the US that in many ways works more like French culture than US commercial companies.

[studiocelestedesign]

Fully geeked! I'm fascinated by cultural differences and you presented this is such an exciting way. :D

[rushdialrashed]

In the Arab world, even when a dead line is coming up in a project, they’d be like : What’s the rush for ?!!!! 🤣

[studiocelestedesign]

Rosie this is a beautiful summary of many books I've read on the differences. It would drive me absolutely mental to hear a "et voila" and to walk away from the meeting without direct and clear actions! Haha, I don't know how you managed it. And congratulations on cracking the art of the French correspondence; I would create career sabotage! Here in Vancouver the French friends I know and my Parisian ex are MASTERS of creating connection and networking. I'm always amazed and need to take a page from their book. Thanks for explaining why they've been taught that! Gros bisous! x