Forty years ago maybe but since then debit cards have been the norm everywhere. Self service 24 hour petrol stations have been around just as long.
A lot of places will be self service then pay at the till. If you’ve bought petrol in Britain and France it will all be familiar.
Thats not how it works around us, its serve self, go into shop, buy weeks shopping with no thought of the queue at the pump behind you, order a latte take all the bloody time you want whilst even more of a queue builds, idle slowly back to your car. Take even more time to pfaff and finally move away from the pump.
I love French petrol stations, fill, roll forward, pay and leave!
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At least it doesn’t sound as though they get their carnet de chèques out, labouriously open it and remove one, ceremoniously handing it to the cashier for printing, take it back and scrutinise every detail before (and only at that point) searching for a pen with which to sign, optionally looking for their reading glasses, carefully noting the amount on the stub, signing - slowly mind, this is money we’re spending and needs due deference - and finally handing back to the cashier.
Or do they do that as well? 
No, most cant write around here 
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The neighbours, effizient? Nööd.
A couple of times I have had to prepay on Autobahns, but generally at machines or pay after filling.
Not sure if always a UK bank card works as I have never tried; I do have one but the account only has about £20 in it. I keep the account open as I was told they would charge me to close it.
Except for the damn silly one at an aire de service on the A28 where you have to park at a pump, go into the shop, queue up with all the plebs buying snacks, tell them how much fuel you want (which means you have to underestimate so as not to buy too much and thus you can’t get a full tank), pay for it, then wander back out to the pump and fill up.
A ludicrous system. I can only assume that station has suffered from too many driveway fuel thefts, though how that is possible with the normal “card in, fill up, pay” system I don’t know.
Yes one of those in Tours as well.
Having 2 queues, one for the patricians and another for the plebeians would be rather contrary to Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Cheques disappeared in Germany a long time ago, probably 15 years. It’s actually a long time since I saw anybody writing a cheque here in France and most of the places where I shop have notices saying that they are no longer accepted.
They are alive and well in Brittany
True but “petrol sales only” and “all other sales” would be perfectly reasonable at peak times.
…
Indeed, but having “pay at the pump” like most other petrol stations would be better still. 
Unfortunately I didn’t make a note of which aire de service on the A28 it was, so I will probably end up there again in June.
Some years ago I was tasked with sorting out travel from the UK to Munich for myself and a group of colleagues. We were due to attend a two week telecomms training course at Seimens just before Christmas.
I suggested we flew to Salzburg and take the train into Munich. The flight was much cheaper to that airport. There was much whingeing from some colleagues! Once we were on the train and they were able to buy beers and admire the views there were apologies. I’d visited Munich a few times but the Christmas markets were new to me - a real treat. We visited Dachau and just two of us opted to stay for the long extended tour which was mainly outside on a cold wet day. We learned a lot about the everyday cruelty handed out to the poor souls from a very engaging Irish guide. Will never forget it. I agree with others who say everyone should visit a similar site. On a lighter note the training was demanding and not a little boring. A colleague who had attended a previous course sent a message telling us to look under the desks. They had sellotaped pairs of matches - eyelid openers.
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Unfortunately industry conferences tend to be a bit like that - my wife had one yesterday which sounds terrible. The advertised breakfast was really just tea/coffee, lunch barely a bite and not even a drinks/pee break in the afternoon.
There is lots of research on attention spans and effective communication strategies which seems to be totally ignored by the organisers.
I have four days solid of it - first day start is mid day (to allow everyone to arrive) and last day finish is also mid day (to allow everyone to leave) but it’s solid 8-6 otherwise. At least they allow coffee breaks and 45 mins lunch (though it’s not included in the conference fee 
)
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I’m fairly sure they researched the optimum learning period many years ago and found a break was desirable after 40-45 mins. Our school lessons were around that length apart from the doubles - yuk double maths!
Indeed it is!
I photograph lots of conferences (and have attended many, as well as once upon a time being in the training industry teaching people how to give presentations).
Most conference organisers do split the day up into sensible length chunks, but not all!
There is also an art to holding the attention of an audience which most conference and seminar speakers lack. One of my bugbears is trying to get photos of an “attentive audience” when at any given moment anything up to a third will have their heads down looking at their phones!
“Death by PowerPoint” is a cliché but there’s a lot of truth in it - instead of using it purely as a visual aid (with lots of photos and simple diagrams) to reinforce and illustrate key points, many presenters put their whole script up on the screen as a huge array of bulleted lists, which they proceed to read aloud!
Even photographers (who should know better) succumb to this - I’ve sat through plenty of “photography seminars” where there was more text than images!
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But, of course that means more time would be required to deliver the course and that would never satisfy the bean counters.
Supermarkets sometimes have petrol stations - most of the ones I’ve used recently (in the last 6 months) you paid inside a little shop, like the standard petrol station in the UK (or elsewhere in Germany for that matter). Motorway fill-ups tend to be the same, although some of those may require you to select your amount first (which I find is always a bit of a pain, as I systematically prefer to fill up completely, rather than just add 20 EUR). It just seems to depend on the size of the petrol station, and where it is located (i.e. is petrol thievery a problem in the area). Even in fairly small towns, there still seems to be at least one petrol station.
I’ve never had any issue paying with any of my French debit cards (Visa or Mastercard).
I remember not so long ago going into a bookshop of a well known bookstore chain in Munich and “filling-up” with a pile of German law books - when I got to the till and pulled out my Visa card, I was given a peremptory “cash only” quip, at which I promptly left the whole pile and left. This was literally only a few of years ago. Fortunately, things have finally changed.