By: Patrick Deem. I have lived in France for over eight months now, giving me the chance to think about many different issues in French society. Only recently, however, was I able to find a word to describe an aspect of French culture that I have witnessed in a number of different contexts.
While this blog post might prove controversial to French people or other Francophiles out there, the word is hierarchy. To begin, I hesitate greatly before using this word. As the concept of social hierarchy can be equated with inequality of one kind another, the word has a charged connotation. As many visitors to France quickly notice, many French administrative buildings bear this famous motto on their walls.
As many have stated before me, race and religion remain a divisive factor in contemporary France. I personally realized these divisions more fully over my fall break, when I had the privilege of staying with the family of my French-Algerian roommate and good friend in their home in the banlieues of Paris. But I would rather not focus on the topic of race and religion in France.
To be sure, societies around the world treat their children, adolescents, adults, and elderly differently. Perhaps the most obvious marker of this French social hierarchy is linguistic. As a student of French in the United States, I learned that this difference is meant to designate respect. Traditionally, French people use vous for elders, superiors, and colleagues in a professional setting, whereas they use tu when speaking among friends or to children.
And yet, I have also realized that linguistic difference can reinforce a hierarchy between those deserving respect and those the French consider young. For example, in a French classroom, students are expected to refer to their professors with the respectful vous. Professors, on the other hand, have the choice of using tu or vous with their students.
