The Angevins, between kindness and a kind of pride

At the occasion of the second national day about kindness, an Angers newspaper asked, in its issue dated november 13th, to newcomers if the inhabitants of the city have such quality. While the results are quite positive for them, they are based on a comparison with the experience these persons lived in other places : there is no more or no less kindness in Angers than elsewhere.

More enlightening are the results of a national enquiry excerpt from "Psychologie Magazine" and quoted by the newspaper : kindness is frequently assimilated to weakness and it's within the world of labour that kindness is most needed.

If France and Angers populations are afraid of kindness, they could be, at least, polite, saying, for exemple "Bonjour Monsieur/Madame" instead of an unpersonnal "Bonjour" who express almost a kind of disinterest to the person they are talking with and which is, moreover, totally foreign to the customary way French used to Speak to somebody. Such a distance reveals almost a kind of condescension which goes along with the decline of the country and the increase of its self-pride.