FRANCE: No More Tipping?

No great novelty in U. S. restaurants are the little cards which read “NO TIPPING. Our waiters are glad to serve you without gratuities,” and which usually add gentle preachment about the dignity of man. But news would be any nation where tipping was against the national law, big news if that nation were France, tourist playground of the world, synonym for good food and good service rewarded via the outstretched palm. Last week Léon Blum, reaching the end of his first year as Premier—a year which he said was notable for “the restoration of human dignity” in France—was out to make just such big news.

Two months ago his Government abolished the droit de tablier (“right of the apron”), the fee that waiters and washroom attendants had to pay their employers for the privilege of working for tips.

Still more revolutionary, on its face, was last week’s close vote by the Chamber of Deputies (267-to-265) approving a bill for the complete abolition of tipping throughout France with the exception of casinos, gambling establishments and watering places.

This was a triumph for the extreme Leftists, who hold that tips are humiliating. Declared Minister of Labor Jean Lebas during the heated Chamber debate: “The worker should not receive as alms what is his right!” Under the bill, which faces strong opposition in the more conservative Senate, workers caught soliciting or accepting tips would be penalized. The money would be made up to them, and more, in regular wages obtained under the workers’ Blum-given collective bargaining contracts. The cost would be passed on to the public by 15% or 20% price increases at restaurants, cafes, cinemas.