Etiquette question

Hello and good afternoon to all. In the US (or at least where I lived and worked), when having an extended business email conversation with someone, when you get to the end, and someone writes “thank you”, usually it’s not done to respond “you’re welcome”, as it’s just an added email for them to read, deemed not necessary, and clutters up the inbox. I am wondering if it’s the same in France. I haven’t been responding “you’re welcome”, but wondering if I am being rude. Thoughts?

I have only limited experience, but I’ve never seen the response « Je vous en prie » or anything like it.

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In France, email communication is basic. You will be lucky to get a reply at all, and certainly not a ‘you are welcome’ one :rofl:

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Good to know, thanks to you both. I’m the one not saying “you’re welcome”. My insurance guy is, I think, filling in for his admin this week, so when he sent me a thank you email, I figured that he didn’t need my “you’re welcome” response cluttering up his probably too-full inbox…but this being France, I didn’t want to offend.

In my experience you don’t. And generally in France if there’s nothing to say then you don’t say anything. So many times there is zero response when you pose a question or launch an enquiry. But if you follow up in frustration at the silence you are most commonly met with puzzlement.

“But we have not yet heard back from the company” “X has not given us his devis” “I haven’t had time to read the full report” etc etc

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I think your question has been answered @Motherrobyn , but there is something related to it which really gets up my nose.

I have a basic mobile phone, it makes and receives calls and texts, it is not ‘smart’, but after finishing a text conversation it is quite common for me to get another reply and when I get there, not always conveniently, especially if I am driving, only to find just 2 little squares on the screen. I am told by friends that it is a special thing from smart phones which equates to ‘ok’.

Really, really annoying. :angry:

In general I agree, but…

I recently had a comparatively complicated question for my waste/déchetterie company. I submitted it by email one afternoon. I received a reply the next morning; a very carefully considered and full answer to my question that dealt with every point. I was so surprised (and grateful) that I fired off a reply, thanking them for their response. I was most surprised to get a further email from them, thanking me for my appreciation of their work.

However, just to show that I am becoming more French, I didn’t bother replying to that one :grin:

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Thanks, all!

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At work when conversing with colleagues I’ll maybe say something to them if using messenger / chat, but not for email.

A simple “de rien”, “avec plaisir” or “pas de quoi” usually is sufficient.

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