French Advice from French Man

Mr. Jean Labarre. Yes - he is the reason I am moving to Paris. He is a french man currently living in Chicago with his American wife and he used to work in the Paris office I'm going to work in. He knows everyone there. He passed along my resume to his people. Ok ok. so then once I was hired he emailed asking if it was really true. Did i accept the offer. Yes. we know i did. But then I wanted him to CONFIRM what everyone had told me about how much the French dislike Americans and here is what he said about that:

...As for Paris …no, they don’t dislike Americans there, they just dislike everybody. That shouldn’t be too much of a change coming from New York!...

...Seriously, though, my word of advice would be to never approach somebody speaking in English. Say at least one or two sentences in French and ask them if they speak English. Generally, they will (albeit poorly, sometimes…) and they will be happy to help you since you showed good will. On the other hand, if you’re like “hey how do I do this or do that” right away, they’ll purposely mislead you (at least, that’s what I would do when I was living over there J)...

I LOVE how he totally admitted that he would mislead an American too. At least he is being dead honest with me. That is MUCH appreciated. Thank you JL.