French Kiss or Air Kiss? It’s your beez-ness!

Most any tour of Paris covers the usual sightseeing ‘musts’: The Eiffel Tower is, of course, the icon, the Arc de Triomphe, the majestic landmark and the Louvre’s crystal pyramid, the latest buzz. But after a couple of days in the City of Light, most can’t help but succumb to the gravitational pull of the city’s greatest attraction: people-watching.

Put it this way: Americans take a walk, or maybe a stroll on special occasions; the French, by contrast, promenade — and strangers become theater. But if an afternoon people-watching in Paris doesn’t cut it for you, why not try bise-watching?

Pronounced beez (as in the swarming honey-makers that populate a hive), we’re referring to that rapid exchange of air kisses often associated with France’s traditional face-to-face greeting. Even if you’re not familiar with the French term, you know “bise” when you see it. Not so long ago, Parisians — whether they grew up here in Europe, the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, or in North or Sub-Saharan Africa — never seemed to second-guess when to greet one another with a bise.

Of course, the pandemic turned this ritual on its ear. Following the same protocols adopted around much of the world, the French health ministry began preaching social distancing as a precaution, even placing the country under lockdown during periods when new cases flared. The agency’s minister Olivier Véran went so far as to single out the bise and recommended, for a time, that the French abstain. Yes, a brief public respite came in June of 2021 when President Emmanuel Macron extended a cheek-to-cheek bise with two World War II veterans during a public ceremony. Even then though, he wore a face mask.

Fast forward to now: bise is back. Despite predictions of its demise, the age-old tradition, which, by the way, survived the plague during the Middle Ages — is surviving COVID-19. Here are three reasons why:

1. French gotta French!

Few cultures unconsciously preserve their “otherness” better than the French; it’s a unique way to safeguard Francophile identity in the face of the onslaught of American culture around the globe. That’s still the case with a few choice customs even as France becomes increasingly diverse and its population, multi-ethnic. Nowhere is that more visible than in Paris. According to census figures, 700,000 people in the metropolitan area were born in former North African colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, more than 150,000 from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and well over 300,000 from Sub-Saharan Africa. Their food, music, mother-tongues, and even dress make the Ile de France region around France’s capital a mosaic. The bise, nonetheless, remains a strong cultural unifier.

A better question might rest on how why the bise seems so different to American observers and just how our reaction reflects the way we live. City University of New York professor Thomas Spear characterizes American culture as touch-phobic. Over time, we learn to keep greetings dutiful, streamline and restrained — the minimalistic handshake, high-five, and most recently, the fist-bump. “Of course, the bise has come back,” he says. “People in Catholic societies seem overall less hung-up about touching and interacting compared to Protestant cultures.”

2. -The bise still stands up to the Big Macs

The French have traditionally put up a fight to preserve their cultural independence vis-à-vis the onward march of globalization. This is a nation that has staked out a global brand based on the country’s gastronomy or the intense study of how good food and wine are entwined with culture. We freely associate French wine, French cuisine, and even the Michelin-star ratings with high style, luxury, or to use another French word, gourmandise. The same goes for fashion: Most everyone knows where the labels Chanel, Dior, Hermes and Louis Vuitton are headquartered. Meanwhile, a hallowed scholarly institution, the Académie Française, meets regularly to purge French of new English (read: American) terms that incessantly creep into the language as they have done elsewhere. The Spanish might refer to ‘software’ and you probably don’t need a dictionary for the Italian ‘aria condizionata.’ The French steadfastly cling to their own newly coined terms logiciel and climatisation instead.

For all that, there’s a still sense that even France can only do so much to fend off the outside world. The country is now home to 1,500 McDonald’s franchises that serve 1.9 million meals a year, according to the fast-food restaurant’s French subsidiary. The vocabulary police haven’t successfully cordoned off words such as ‘cool,’ ‘selfie,’ ‘spoiler’ or ‘hashtag.’

By contrast, the bise seems to be one practice that has held off the siege. True to form, when it comes to the execution of even simple cultural procedures, the French have a reputation for being sticklers. As a result, bise technique matters very much. Start with choreography. A proper ‘bise’ is dry. Lips are pointed straight ahead and do not touch. Cheeks lightly graze one another and the mouth really plays a secondary role at best. That moistened pucker Grandma Bertie swabbed halfway between your ear and nose after Sunday school back in the day? That’s strictly a social infraction.

3. In France, not all kisses are created equal

The French embrace protocol. When it comes to intimacy, the bise is reserved for family, friends and neighbors. The tacit understanding is that you greet a select group of people you regularly encounter … and like this way — provided you are on good terms. Work colleagues? That depends on how closely knit the office camaraderie runs. Folks you know at the bar or hangout around the corner? They quite possibly qualify. Women and men, women and women, men and men? The answer is yes. In their pride, the French claim the ability to process the prescreening complexities of bise eligibility in mere nanoseconds. Many boast they have developed an instinctive understanding, one that allows them to read the setting and rapport and smoothly determine whether or not a bise is appropriate. But even so, there are very large and very real gray areas that baffle them, too.

What most puzzles the French are regional variations. Question one: Which cheek comes first? In the north and west of the Hexagon (as the French refer to their country), greeters start on the right. In the South, including Marseille and Corsica, the bise is ritually planted first on the left cheek followed by the right. Even more confusion reigns over the number of bises. The safest bet is two, a practice commonly followed in Paris and much of the country. That said, a sizable contingent in the country’s South greets in three bises. There are even outliers: One is the going rate in French-speaking regions of Belgium, while some Atlantic-coast regions indulge in a customary four.

All of which promises for a fascinating field study in amateur anthropology on your next European tour. You can now decipher a number of important clues about Parisians, their origin and their relationships through a handful of observations that all center around a traditional greeting. Ponder that when you sit down for your next demitasse of espresso on a Paris boulevard.

James A. Anderson is a professor at the Lehman College (Bronx) campus of the City University of New York, as well as a journalist, author and editor who writes on economics, urban planning, sustainability, music, and finance. His work has appeared in Time Magazine, Next City, Barron’s, Savoy among other publications.

This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 8:00 AM with the headline "French Kiss or Air Kiss? It’s your beez-ness!."