Dreadful
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I’ve accidentally done it to a few very senior French military officers and they’ve all been very gracious, with a couple insisting that we continue. Now I make the occasional “tactical” mistake to test the water 
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Dreadful
Police will be police. Try conversing with a Glasgow cop… no, don’t.
" jist fuckin’ move it" ( van in wrong place)
You aren’t French are you, so you won’t get the nuance 
In my case it has typically been the French party who have started to use tu. Sometimes pausing to ask if is OK.
Interestingly 25 plus years ago the company I worked for purchased a company in France and I liaised with the director ajoint before and after the purchase, very soon his e-mails began to use tu. On our next face to face meeting he used tu all the time and at dinner in the evening the sales director came over to talk with me and said “What did you do with Bernard he has never referred to anybody as tu in the thirty years I have known him”
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Reminds me of a News report/video where 2 high-level politicians (I think both were French, French was certainly the common language)… were talking very amicably “tu-tu” and suddenly one changed his reply to a firm “vous…” and it was clear that this was not a friendly exchange after all… 
This shift from warm to icy (reprimand?) was played up by the Press at the time
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I only use ‘thou’ to close friends. As in ‘Sam, Sam, pick up tha musket’. (with thanks to Stanley Holloway). And abhor the already plural ‘you’ elongated to ‘youse’. No thanks to my Scouse friends.
I think I do. I know it’s disrespectful to tutoyer a stranger. They should use vous, as they probably would to a white French person. It’s also how you would address a child.
In my early days I tutoyed a young shop assistant after saying excusez moi but not bonjour. She seemed a bit disgruntled.
I appreciate the respect - which no-one has to earn: it’s given because it’s the right thing to do - implicit in vouvoyer.
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A bit like bisous, I always leave it up to the females to indicate when it is appropriate. I am surprised at the number of unrelated men do it too, it has only happened to me once with a bloke apart from my son and grandchildren who have been brought up to it by me for a long time, despite them not living here.
I know it is only a cheek touch really so, as I have a goatee beard these days I always shave my cheeks, thinking always of the ladies if I am venturing beyond the gates. 
The men with whom I exchange the local triple bisous never seem to have shaved for at least a couple of days.
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Beware the velcro effect. 
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