Books About France

In French or Foe?, Platt takes you, step by step - peppered with funny real-life anecdotes - through the things you have to know in order to interact comfortably with French people and to do business effectively with them, from explanations of the Six Politeness Codes to buying bread and dealing with the bureaucracy to, finally, what happens in French companies and why it happens, and why... ... why French meetings don't end in decisions ... why you're better off not saying "tu" at the office French or Foe? explores the cultural hurdles to understanding French people...

Polly Platt's love affair with France started when, at eight, her parents dumped her in a château with no one to talk to but the servants and a donkey. Later she would say that the sweetness of the servants and the orneriness of the donkey were the daily tug of war that was the French genius, which she would study more closely when, breaking off a career in journalism, she moved there with her family in 1967. In 1989, distressed at the French-bashing parties of Americans in Paris, she founded Culture Crossings and began giving cultural adaptation seminars for foreigners, executives from companies such as General Motors, 3M, Coca Cola, Microsoft and JP Morgan.