French café begins fining customers for rudeness... with a coffee costing seven euros if you do not say ‘please’ or wish the barista a nice day

FRANCE: It's said that good manners don't cost you anything and, for the customers of one café, they could even help save the pennies. A café in the south of France has called out its less well-mannered customers by hiking the price of a coffee if they don't say please. The Petite Syrah café in Nice, on the French Riviera, is charging customers €7 for 'a coffee', but a more affordable €4.25 for a 'a coffee please'.

But those customers who request their caffeinated beverage with a cheery 'good day, a coffee please' get the best deal of all. Their coffees will set them back just €1.40. The French are well known for their love of pleasantries, even having two versions of the word 'you' depending on how polite the speaker wants to be when addressing an interlocutor.

English-language French news site thelocal.fr even says that in the country manners go so far as to make it the done thing to wise complete strangers good afternoon, even when merely leaving their company in a lift.  So when standards drop it can be a particularly unpleasant shock, which is why the Petite Syrah has decided to enforce polite deportment by hitting rude customers in their pockets.

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