La bise: a user’s guide
Two, three, four? Right cheek or left? The most ordinary gesture in French life remains a small ordeal, for visitors and for the French themselves. Here is how never to hesitate again.
Watch the arrivals at a Parisian dinner party and you will understand. A guest walks in, leans towards the hostess, then towards the first person she meets, and that is the moment of truth: a slight wobble, two faces heading the same way, an awkward laugh. La bise is the most everyday gesture in French life, and yet nobody has ever really explained it to us.
Perhaps that is why it fascinates foreigners so much. English-language travel guides devote whole pages to it, YouTube channels make tutorials. For the French, it is instinct. For everyone else, it is a code to be learnt, with its rules, its regional variations and its exceptions.
Whom do you kiss?
La bise is exchanged between friends, within the family, between colleagues who know each other well, and between children and the adults around them. It is never offered at a first professional meeting, nor to someone noticeably older or more senior who has not suggested it. A first appointment with a banker, a notary or a future employer always begins with a handshake.
Between these two poles lies a vast grey area: friends of friends, neighbours, other parents at the school gate, colleagues from another department. This is where most hesitations are born. The safest rule fits in one sentence: let the other person decide. If they offer a hand, shake it. If they lean in, kiss. Nobody will ever reproach you for following their lead.
How many times?
This is the question that has fuelled end-of-dinner conversations for generations. In Paris and across most of the country, it is two kisses. In parts of the South, in Provence or the Languedoc, three is common. Some areas of the West and the Centre go as far as four. There is no official map, and customs sometimes vary from one town to the next, or even from one family to another.
| Where | Between friends |
|---|---|
| Paris and most of France | Two kisses |
| Parts of the South | Three, sometimes four |
| Belgium | Often just one |
| French-speaking Switzerland | Three |
| Italy, Spain | Two |
| United Kingdom, Germany, the Nordic countries | A handshake or a hug |
When you are a guest elsewhere, follow your hosts. A Parisian on holiday in Montpellier has nothing to prove: he simply lets the movement carry on to the third cheek.
Which side first?
Here again, tradition varies by region, and this is the source of almost every little mishap. The simplest approach is to start with the other person’s right cheek, which means turning your head slightly to the left, and to stay alert. If they go the other way, follow without insisting. Elegance, here, lies in not forcing anything.
The gesture itself
La bise is not really a kiss. Cheeks brush, the lips make a faint sound in the air, and the contact lasts barely a second. You do not put a hand on the other person’s shoulder, or only just, and you take great care not to leave a trace of lipstick. A heavy hand with perfume becomes, in these circumstances, a small act of aggression.
One detail that is often forgotten: take off your sunglasses, and never kiss with a phone to your ear or a full glass in your hand.
In 2020, the pandemic suspended la bise for many long months. Many French people discovered that one could greet warmly without kissing, and some professional circles never really took it up again. When in doubt, the handshake has become a perfectly elegant option once more.
And above all, bonjour
If la bise is intimidating, the “bonjour” is the true foundation of French politeness. Walking into a shop, a waiting room or a lift without a greeting is one of the most noticed faults, and one of the most common among foreign visitors. A simple “Bonjour” addressed to the room is enough, even if nobody seems to be looking at you.
The most elegant form remains “Bonjour Madame” or “Bonjour Monsieur”, without the surname. Towards the end of the afternoon, you switch to “Bonsoir”, and making the change at the right moment is a sign of attentiveness.
In France, you can be forgiven almost anything, except forgetting to say bonjour.
Remember the essentials: observe, let the other person decide, and never turn a greeting into a performance. The perfect bise is the one nobody remembers.
