My position on this matter is very similiar to Mountain Trader...don't overdue tipping, Paris or wherever. The gratuity is most likely already in the total you were given. But of course, it is your $$$, I assume.

Please clarify. Are you speaking of the Four Seasons George V in Paris?

Double Tipping
 

Why would anyone want to tip twice?!! We Americans just like to tip. My first trip to China, the people returned our tip and said, "No Thank You". In a recent trip back to China, the tour guide wanted $400 to tip all the various people involved with making our tour enjoyable. We have no one to blame but ourselves.:confused: :(

Agree. I go to Paris about twice a year and have many Parisian friends. No tipping in restuarants - unless it's rounding up as an extra thank you. In a sidwalk cafe, same thing.

But taxi's - 10% is customary amongst the french, unless he's helping you with alot of luggage, then maybe 15%.

I have actually had a waitress get mad at me for not leaving a pourboire. It was at the coffee shop at Galeries Lafayette. All we had was chocolat chaud!

It took me by surprise.

I guess she's used to american tourists. ;)

To be honest though, I tend to tip if I linger with even only a coffee. I feel that if I'm hanging out at a table in a place that's a bit crowded, the waitperson is losing money due to lack of table turnover, so I leave a tip.

Here in the US they'd signal you to leave while in Paris, it's against the law and you can sit for hours w/ one cup of coffee.

There are jerks everywhere. :td: I had a cab driver try and keep my change for a tip he decided he earned. :td:

This is where a knowledge of French comes in handy and I don't mean simply to figure out whether or not the menu says "service compris."

The question I am still waiting to find out is if OP is staying at the Four Seasons George V in Paris. Adopting the attitude in a place like that that no one gets tipped will not do you well. ;)

Isn't the George V the most expensive place in town? It would be hard to imagine not tipping in a place like that.

Not quite, a few others have higher rack rates. Some examples are, of course, The Ritz and the Plaza Athénée.

The point I was making was that at the high-end hotels you should expect to be tipping the doorman and the bellmen every time they do something for you, not to mention, of course, the concierge.

I don't think you and I are in any disagreement. I think we're all trying to find out what's on OP's mind.

When they say that the "service" is included, and in France it is by law, it does not mean a tip as we know it. The "service" goes into the restaurant account and the owner divvies up a portion of that to the waiters. Some will go to cover other expenses. Whatever extra you leave on the table beyond that does go to the server directly. The French word for tip is pourboire. It means literally "to drink". I guess it means give the poor waiter a few centimes for a shot of whiskey to get him through the night.

Since the employment laws are so different from ours, it's hard to compare the two, but basically in France the servers are paid a living wage. (In the U.S. they are paid way below minumum wage, tips make up the difference.)

They also get 4 weeks paid vacation, again mandated by law, sick days and various other benefits.

But back to the original question, if you stay at the Georges V and don't tip, don't expect to be treated very well. If you eat at Taillevent or Le Grand Vefour, you'd best leave at least 5% in cash.

Since I hate jingling coins, I find tipping in france to be a great way to empty my pockets. Usually by dinner I will have a euro + some cents. I just pluck it down and let them have it. More likely Ill end up leaving it in the hotel the next day and bring it back to the states where it will sit forever in my foreign change pile - might as well let someone make use out of it.

Basic tipping rules
 

I live in Paris.

Basic rules Parisians have on tipping:

Coffee in a bar : 0,20€
Tip in restaurant : approx. 10€ to 15€ in restaurants where service is particularly nice for bills of 80€ to 150€.

The service fee included in the bill doesn't automatically all go into the server's pocket. The 15% service fee is used to pay all the salaries of the restaurants including kitchen staff.

Now, everybody knows that service is not the best in France and particularly in Paris, so do not tip "just because you're in France".

I live in Paris, too, and while I'd agree on the coffee tip, I have never seen anyone but a tourist tip 10% consistently. For really good service on a bill of €100, it'd be more like €5. Many people don't leave anything beyond rounding up to the nearest €5 or €10.

absolutment...the only place I've received worse service is NZ where tipping is "prohibited."

That's odd. I had great service in NZ (over a 2-month period). And I find the the service in France, where I live, generally to be efficient and professional, if sometimes a little brusque.

But equally, I've had many dining experiences in France (including Paris) where the staff were friendly and very helpful. I remember on the night my husband arrived in Paris (I'd already been living here for a few months), we realised that our furnished flat lacked a corkscrew. We took the celebratory bottle of wine we'd bought out for a walk in the neighbourhood and stopped in a restaurant on the way home to ask a waiter if he'd open it for us. He looked a little surprised by our request, but immediately responded with "of course". He looked at the bottle, gave us an opinion on the wine, told us the French word for corkscrew (we'd made our request using charades), opened the bottle and said "welcome to Paris".