Purely anecdotally, I wonder if la bise is in decline, at least locally. Yesterday my wife was waiting outside a nearby Intermarché when she saw two people (both women) who evidently knew and liked each other, greet and chat with evident pleasure. But no bise.
Obviously you wouldn’t want to extrapolate a wider trend just from one instance in one locality but it did set us thinking whether la bise might be on the wane a little, at least here (in Seine Maritime). We both volunteer at the local clothes bank, and I expected to have to run the gauntlet of bises on arrival from co-volunteers - none. Few of the many regulars who know each other very well seem to do the bise. This seems a fairly representative cross section of the local rural community (the clothes bank is open to anybody, and is very popular). I wonder if COVID has possibly played a part in reducing the prevalence of la bise here…
It would be interesting to hear whether others have experienced anything similar, including amongst school children, at work, close friends, acquaintances etc.
In my village and even in the local towns… I see people meeting and kissing… while members of the same group will stand slightly aside, smiling in friendly fashion, but not making the move to "embracing/kissing… so it’s a personal choice.
It’s come about since Covid made us all stop and think twice…
and stayed with us due to the many nasty bugs which are still around and making folk very ill (albeit for perhaps only a few days and not life-threatening… but still worth avoiding if one can. )
I reckon by Summer there will be more hugs/kisses… once the sunshine and fresh air has rebuilt our immunity…
EDIT I might have mentioned elsewhere, but our football team was laid low with Covid a couple of weeks ago (thankfully after the match) …
and, more recently, a nasty form of La Grippe has struck our council workers and some school staff… so I reckon prudence is still worthwhile.
Nah… I’ve retired from the position of Manager/Coach nowadays… although I do still gather and return the balls the kids send flying over the playground walls.
I know you are jesting… but back in the day (100 years go)… as an enthusiastic Akela, I diecided to train my group of cubs…
my lads were a real mixed bunch… but each of them gave it their all…
and one year (just the one…) we, “the underdogs” managed to actually win the annual regional 5-a-side tournament…
It really was a dream come true… they’d all worked so hard and each of them took their turn to play… so no-one left on the sidelines…
At the end of the day, when the Results were announced… parents and players, everyone from the Region went wild and I wept… as my boys went to receive their “medals”… (I got one too… )
EDIT: Our village now has a ladies football team as well as the long-established male team…
it was the men who copped Covid that weekend, caught from one (or more) of the visiting opposition.
I agree that Covid has had an effect. There are still some women I have known for many years who offer the cheek to me but they are mainly in the older bracket of age. With the younger ones who were never in my circle of bises, but in the hand shaking one, have stopped even that now. And I never make the first move, so no embarrassement, I look on it as their custom, not mine, to offer or not.
Strangely, a notice went up in the cabinet a few weeks ago saying ‘masques obligatoire’ again and most of the patients and the receptionist obey, but don’t enforce. The doctor, not only is without a mask but has resumed handshakes.
Also, of all the dozens of different aides who come to see Fran, only the 2 males shake my hand, the females, never, even the few who have also become friends. I take it that the principle is a professional distancing, but why not with the men?
Tricky things, customs. But one thing I insist on, with people I meet every day almost, whatever their purpose and station in life, I do not want to be Monsieur xxxxxx. I am not the Lord of the Manor, and they are not serfs. How come the British are more egalitarian than the revolutionary republican French?
Covid has had a massive effect. Several of our friends have said how happy they are to be able to stop, as they hated it from childhood but felt constrained by custom. Here it’s now much more an individual thing. Some have returned to kissing, others haven’t. So a quick reflex judgement call now.
I like it, we don’t waste time at the beginning and end of exercise classes, reunions and so on. Those who I do kiss it is with more enthusiasm , so huggy kiss. Otherwise just lean slightly back and people get the message.
There’s only one French man with whom I exchange bises, and he invariably has three days growth on his face. So I always make some remark about shaving and his (English) wife invariably says, “Jean-Pierre, you said you were going to have a shave before we went out.”
Over the years this has become such a ritual exchange, that I might not recognise him if he’d just had a shave - “Are you J-P’s brother?”
Yes, I would definitely say it’s on decline, but still many people who continue and will always continue and who often didn’t stop doing it during covid time.
At least I would say it is no longer expected of you at each meeting, but certainly not advisable to reject it from those who want to continue it.
Until we moved to France a greeting was a ‘mornin’, ‘afternoon’ or ‘evnin’. Handshakes were for formal meetings and a peck on the cheek was strictly for close family.
Here I quickly got used to handshakes for both men and women which I find civil and friendly. French custom of la bise are fine for those have been born and bred to it but seeing expats/imigrants from uk taking the custom on board I find repulsive with those who take to it with gusto. I have no desire to kiss or be kissed by a women I am meeting for the first time and I certainly do not want her letch of a husband taking my wife in a bear hug.
And dont get me started on man hugs, what’s that about?
We see this a lot at gatherings of our various car-clubs… when people know one another very well and are genuinely pleased to see one another.
It’s not all of the men who do this… some merely shake hands in friendly or polite fashion, depending on the situation.
First time “the hug” happened to OH was in Paris many years ago… he was a little startled … but also pleased that he was obviously now accepted as “one of the boys”… the friendships we forged with that particular club have lasted through the years, despite no longer being members…
one sort of halfway house… can occur when shaking hands with friends…
OH offers his right hand and the other gent takes it in his own right hand… then raises his left arm and touches/takes hold of OH’s right shoulder with his left hand… sometimes half-pulling him into an “almost embrace” almost, but not quite…
this display of friendship is not at all abhorrent… it’s absolutely fine with us…
Well I love it and never pull back and I have never ever thought of it as being ‘lechie’, but I never initiate and always take my cue from the experts, the French. it is their custom and I throughly approve of it being, apart from nationality, totally submerged in French life.
I can only assume you have been extremely unlucky in your encounters or that you have totally missed the whole point of French culture in this regard. For the first time some months ago I was kissed on both cheeks by a man friend, a former driver like me and a current enthusiast and volunteer, like me, in the dog world. I was surprised but not repelled and I certainly didn’t think for even one moment that it was anything other than true friendship. I think you must relax if you are not to be thought of as the stiff and formal Englishman of repute.
