Originally Posted by respectable_man
...everywhere and implicit attitude that you should speak French at all cost. French is my mother tongue, and I have no difficulty understanding the remarks of the staff at the airport. I mean, there is attitude and then there is Attitude!
I'd heard about this before leaving before Paris, and consequently didn't attempt to speak English to any Parisien/ne at any time. In fact, the only English I spoke in France was to my friends a couple of "Bosnian" beggars near the Seine, who approached me first.
As a bonus, no one made fun of my Central Canadian accent or attempted to reply in English, which would have been the typical response in my old home, Ottawa. ^
I find it completely unacceptable to have french-only staff at the RER station. Gee! That's a no brainer that you should make sure you have ticket agents that can communicate with the persons transiting there. Have you ever withnessed a family of tired japanese tourists trying to buy an RER ticket from a ticket collector? Or Russians? Never mind the fact that the imbecile civil servant spoke miserable anything (including French!), she decided to take a 15minute break despite the fact she manned the only wicket open at that time!
I did find the RER system to be somewhat...bizarre, but I had just been broken down by the London tube a week before (those same awful ticket-grabbing turnstiles!), and was prepared for anything. In my case, I wasted half an hour attempting to find an open wicket at the Gare du Nord for my return trip to CDG. I just couldn't understand why I had to leave the station itself in order to buy a train ticket, but just chalked it up to inexperience at the time. I did see that most travellers were simply asking one of the many uniformed military personnel in the station for directions, and took that as a sign that I wasn't going to get much help from SNCF staff.
The passport control officer (there is in my experience a single one unless you are travelling from the AF-terminal - whichever number it is) is not to be hurried by the long lineups of people impatiently waiting for their flights! Why should he bother? They are just tourists!
This does bring up a question -- I was travelling LIS-CDG, and couldn't find a customs/immigration official ANYWHERE when I deplaned, and consequently didn't get my passport stamped. Was I in France illegally? Oops!