Recently, I had a discussion with some friends in the US about culture in the workplace. They told me that in the US, people don’t really make small talk, that there is a clear separation between personal life and work: you go to work to work.

This surprises me pretty much, as I’m used to the French culture, where, yet there is a distinction between private life and work, the French still have a strong relationship with their company and colleagues.

Especially if you have French colleagues or work in France, you will see the “pause-café” culture: people love coffee break to discuss with their colleagues.

To be honest, for me – someone pretty quiet and reserved, it’s really not my piece of cake. I can raise my voice when needed at work, but when it comes to small talks, I usually don’t know what to say.

Nevertheless, there is a solution!

After years working, mostly in very “franchouillard” (typically French) companies, I’ve found a tip to “survive” :

– Ask them questions about the topics that they care about –

And here is some suggestions for you – French typically small talk topics :

1. Transports

Transport – the top n°1 topic for the Parisians. When you come to the office in the morning, the easiest thing to break the ice and start the conversation is to talk about transports.

“Oh là là, quelle galère ce matin! Il y avait un monde de fou sur la A !” (“Oh my God, what a struggle this morning! It was so crowded on the line A !”) – if you start to say this, you start to be French!

The French love to complain about the traffic. Strike is the first nation sport, the second is complaining about traffic trouble due to train drivers’ strike.

You can also ask your colleagues about his way to go to work, whether there was any accident on his train, or simply…how he comes to work.

My boss for instance, he can describe exactly the three different ways for him to go to work, and to go back home from work: he usually take his bike, if he does so, he will have to get up early, he has to take a shower when he gets to work, but there is no public bathroom at work, but because he knows the building guards, he can borrow their bathroom. But when he gets home afterwork, it’s harder as it’s a hill up way. So he can bicycle until Saint Cloud, then take a bus (I forgot the number), until the station (I forgot the name) and then take the train C. Or he has another option for the raining days, he can take the train L until the Saint-Lazard Station and then take the metro line 12 until Porte de Versailles and then take a public bicycle. Or then he has another options, […]. Well, you see what I mean ? And if you talk about your way to work, he will tell story about his old days when he had to used the same train to go to his former company, etc.

The point is, the French love (telling) stories, and love details, and the French engineer minds are curious about how everything works. Just give them a question, they will talk for hours!

2. Weather

“Oh, it’s so sunny today, how it’s wonderful !” or “It’s raining, it’s so sad!”, just simply so, you can start a conversation with your colleagues (if they are in the mood, of course).

Or, even better : “It’s raining, it’s so sad, but tomorrow it will get better, we gonna have a nice sunny weekend! What is your plan for this weekend?” and here you go, other favorite small talk topic.

3. Weekends and Holiday

“How was your weekend?” is the “hello” for Monday mornings. If your colleagues are happy, they will narrate about their weekend activities : the movie they watched, the museums they visited, the pub where they hang out with friends, etc.

It’s the favorite topic, next to…Holiday!

Holiday is sacred in France!

French employees has minimum 25 days off, plus about 12 days/year more if you work more than 35 hours/week, which is pretty common. If you work for public companies, you can have like 11 weeks off, which means, about 1 day off every… week! For children, they have scholar vacations practically every one month and a half: you start your scholar year in September, and about 3 weeks later, we start to plan the next mid/end-of-October-two-week-vacation. You come back from Fall break, you start to plan your Christmas holiday. And so on.

Scholar vacations calendar is very important to know when you have co-workers who are parents, when you plan your meetings or project: you don’t want to schedule a big meeting/activity when everyone is on vacation, right?

As a result, you can talk about holiday the whole year: the recent holiday, then the up-coming holiday. You can also talk about very old holidays, old experiences 🙂

4. Sports, movies, musics, culture, etc. oh my god, so many choices!

One of the advantage of having a lot of vacation is to have time to do other activities. The French are serious when they work but they usually have the second life next to work, where they take care of their hobbies.

An IT colleague who is very sportive, who participates in Marathon, Triathlon competitions for example, it’s not rare. The sportive guys also care much about their diet; you can learn a lot from them about how to build your muscle and reduce your fat percentage.

In general, they love to talk about musics, movies, cultures, etc. And always in details: they give you the list of all the actors playing James Bond from the beginning until now, compare the different Rambo movies, or repeat some cult movie quotes, etc.

5. Cooking & eating

France is famous for its gastronomy, everyone knows. But if you live in France, you will also know that the French love talking about cooking, especially… in the middle of a meal! Not about the meal they are eating, but other plates, other restaurants 🙂

I have a former (male) colleague who loves cooking. He usually described exactly how he prepared his diner of the day before, during our lunch break.

Now, you know why the French lunch break can last for 1-2 hours 😀

6. Geopolitics & history

Daily politics news is for everyone: the latest debate, the recent announcement, the new policy, current scandales, etc. By the way, as the next presidential elections will take place on April 2022, we have many political events to discuss about right now.

For some elder, furthermore, they also enjoy going back in time to analyze history and geopolitics. I remember when I first came to France, I once randomly discussed with the security guard of my student doom, and when he learned that I came from Vietnam, he started to talk to me about Vietnam, Saigon, Indochina, etc. – I mean, my country! It surprised me a lot. Discuss with the elders about those topics is interesting, it’s also a way to share and transfert culture heritage between generations.

However, while discussing about these topics, you should be careful for not offense someone, as it can turn to be very sensible. Personally, we had a friend getting mad and leaving our house in the middle of the diner because he argued with another friend about taxes policies. Well, you don’t want to fight with your colleague over a coffee break, nor reveal details about your paycheck or patrimony situation while discussing about taxes calculation, right?

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There are many other topics to discuss with your colleagues: family, children (moms love talking about their children!), embroidery, carpentry, gardening, etc. according to your colleagues’ and your interests. The list below is just my suggestions, and my colleagues are mostly men.

Now, that you’ve got the tip and all the possibilities, there is no need to worry about the small talk!

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What about you, how is your relationship with your colleagues? What do you usually talk about in coffee breaks?