Paris. In increasingly frenetic times, where we try to optimize our day to best fit in all our daily commitments, there's a city that bucks the trend. We're not talking about a small, slow-paced provincial town, or a remote country village lost to God and man. The city in question is Paris , the capital and most populous city in France. The newspaper Le Monde analyzed the true paradox of the Parisian population, who, despite being perpetually in a hurry, don't bat an eyelid when it comes to standing in line, waiting for hours in the freezing cold to visit a museum, enter a restaurant, or buy the latest smartphone. Legend has it that in 2010, at the Claude Monet retrospective at the Grand Palais, some people stood in line for six hours to admire their favorite artist's masterpieces.
Paris's passion for queues
In the City of Light, waiting in line has become a veritable social phenomenon. It begins early in the morning, when every self-respecting Parisian patiently lines up at the boulangerie to secure their daily baguette , which must be tucked under their armpits. But waiting in line also happens to show solidarity and support more important causes: this is what happened on January 14th with the first issue of Charlie Hebdo after the jihadist attacks, when thousands of people flocked to newsstands across the city to support the Parisian weekly magazine, which had been attacked in the most barbaric manner by Islamic fundamentalism.
The question then arises spontaneously: what is the reason for Parisians' passion for waiting in lines? Richard Larson , a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a scholar of the psychology of queues since 1977, attempts to answer this question. " It's the phenomenon of the 'chic' queue, where these types of queues are experienced as collective experiences, events to be recounted and treasured in one's memory ." A recent study found that 80% of French people spend an average of an hour a week waiting. Queues have now become an integral part of the urban landscape. Last year, and this is history, when Burger King reopened, some people waited over an hour to secure a menu. So much for fast food...
Dario Mastellone
