My friends say that my hatred of the French and France is an overreaction on my part. They say that I was only in the airport, and thus did not get a true picture of the French as a people. To these points I say boo. If you would have been in my shoes on that fateful day in December of 2005 when I had the misfortune of landing in the Most Horrid Country On Earth™, you would feel the same as I do.

Before I begin my tale of woe, let me make two points:

• I should not be expected to know French culture and customs if I am simply in transit.
• I was told by a couple of people that the French have different sensibilities than Americans do. You need to talk to them differently in order to get them to be nice to you. I call B.S. on that one. I was being nothing but polite, and was given the run-around by the frogs. de Gaulle airport needs to have some English signage: It is yet another sign of hostility towards the outside world that de Gaulle airport has very sparse English signage. Thus, when I was lost and trying to find my way, I could only guess at where I was going or what I was doing. Any reputable international airport servicing people needs to do better than Paris.

Let me give you the tale in chronological order:

• 8.30 AM: Land in Paris from Chicago. Ask two men on jetway where the transit lounge is. They give me a cold look and answer in French. I decide to follow the crowd.
• 8.35 AM: Crowd leads me to immigration line. I get a stamp in my passport and end up in the arrivals lounge.
• 8.40 AM: Start looking for Emirates Airlines ticket counter so someone can tell me where the hell to go for my connecting flight.
• 8.55 AM: After scouring the various ticket counters, no sign of Emirates. Decide to walk out of Terminal 2C to see if it’s elsewhere.
• 9.10 AM: Reach Terminal 2A. Ask woman at Air France counter where I can find the Emirates ticket counter. In a snooty French voice, she replies, “Eet eez in Tair-minal 2C. Go zere, you weel find eet.” (It is in Terminal 2C. Go there. You will find it.)
• 9.25 AM: Back in 2C. Start looking for Emirates ticket counter again. 9.45 AM: Still no sign of it. Decide to go towards 2F.
• 10.05 AM: Reach 2F. Ask man at counter there for directions. Get essentially same response as from woman in 2C. Start walking back.
• 10.25 AM: Reach 2C. Begin lamenting my horrible fate. Begin to worry that I will never make it out of this accursed country.
• 10.30 AM: Man approaches me and asks where I’m from. I tell him I’m from Pakistan. He’s from Bangladesh. We make a pact to work together in combing this horrible Terminal 2C. Agree to meet back in 20 minutes.
• 10.40 AM: Success! I find Emirates ticket counter, nestled in a miniscule booth by the Korean Airlines counter. Return to meeting place
• 10.50 AM: We proceed together to Emirates ticket counter and ask where we go to catch the flight to Dubai. Lady tells us we need to talk to ticketing agent. She is not French, so she is pleasant to deal with.
• 11.00 AM: We happen to spot the Emirates ticketing agent. She is a cross looking woman reading a newspaper and eating what seems to be a baguette. We ask for assistance. She looks at us and says, “I am not on duty until eleven-thirty!”. We wait and stare while she eats baguette and reads paper.
• 11.30 AM: Ticketing agent finally condescends to put her paper down and help us. Points us to where we need to go. Sneers at us as we leave.
• 11.45 AM: We are in the departures terminal and locate the flight! We will leave this place after all!

As you can see, my time in France was spent in anguish. The natives did nothing to help, only sneering and giving snippy answers. After this experience, I vowed to never again touch French soil.

I wanted to see if my experience was an isolated incident, so I began to talk to my fellow Dubai bound travelers. The ones who had been through Paris before said something to the effect of, “I told my travel agent never to route me through here again.” The newbies like myself said, “This is bar none the most hostile and unfriendly place I have ever been to.” That means something from people who have been foreign workers in the Middle East. On my return trip, I was forced to go through Paris again. Thankfully, my bitterly gained knowledge and the Emirates ground crew’s directions prevented a repeat of the above experience.

I now despise everything French. The language sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. The memories of the people rank among my worst nightmares. The place is the ninth circle of hell to me.

I make it a point to tell all my brown pals that Paris is not the place for people like us. If I’m ever transiting through Europe again, I think I would rather have a connecting flight going through Sarajevo than Paris. At least those Serbians know how to treat people right.