The man urging people in the metro to be nice says that he himself is not especially nice and finds it Mission Impossible to ask people in the metro to be nice. He admits he himself yelled at the bakery-shop clerk this morning "and I wasn't even in a hurry"!
Today is the Journée de la Gentillesse, or Day of Being Nice, in France. It's sponsored by Psychologie Magazine, which is also organizing a seminar on "well-being at work." The magazine recently sponsored a study that found that 85% of French drivers very regularly get angry while driving. This year, it gave its Niceness Prize to new French president François Hollande, who is in fact known for being a pretty calm and decent guy.
For me the funniest thing about the Day of Being Nice is the response of the French media. The basic problem is that to French people, being nice means you're a sap.
Journal de Dimanche, quoting Christopher Regina, author of book called A Dictionary of Malice (Dictionnaire de la Méchanceté): "Niceness is the opium they're selling us these days." And "Hypocrisy!" says Jean-Albert Meynard, author of The Bluebeard Complex: Psychology of Malice and Hatred. (Complexe de Barbe-Bleue, psychologie de la méchanceté et de la haine). Meynard complains about this "Teddy-Bear world they want us to believe in, where everyone is nice."
Le Parisien interviews a "life coach, psychiatrist and president of the Institut français de l'action sur le stress," Éric Albert.
Le Parisien: Is it really reasonable to promote goodwill on the job?
Éric Albert: Everyone has a tendency to treat being nice on the job with derision and condescension. But my profound conviction is that it is essential.
From Le Mag Femmes, a popular women's website: In everyday speech, the word "nice" often implies lack of intelligence, and it's common for niceness to be associated with the inability to make oneself respected.
The French Huffington Post's headline reads: Can you be French and gentille at the same time? and illustrates the article with a French Twitterer who posts a François Mauriac quotation from the book Nest of Vipers: "A certain kind of niceness is always a sign of treachery."
Le Monde reports that the head of Google Europe says, "I'm afraid that France behaves spitefully. You can't be constructive like that" and says that the French are more difficult than other nationalities to work with.
Several of the articles finished with "Les Français ont des progrès à faire" ! *
*The French still have some work to do.
