"We've made a mistake, and we're sorry."

These are words one seldom hears in France.

Words that you may hear instead include:

"It's not my fault."
"It's not our department."
"We don't have the budget for that."
"It's too bad that you feel that way."

This is more than a customer service issue. Unwillingness to accept responsibility and to apologize starts at the executive floor and permeates whole organizations.

Is this unique to France? Of course not, but this kind of reflexive avoidance is especially prevalent here. I think that it's a cultural attribute that matters because it generates costs. The most obvious cost is having disgruntled, unhappy customers. But I see two, more pernicious costs in the background:
  • reasoning in terms of fault usually is unproductive, often is no more than a rhetorical disculpatory ploy by the speaker, and always postpones the effective resolution of a problem;  
  • a bureaucratic response –moving blame to an institution or organization– reduces the likelihood that anything will actually be done to correct the underlying problem.