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Politeness: should you ask your guests to remove their shoes?
Politeness: should you ask your guests to remove their shoes? – (France 2)
Some French people ask their guests to take off their shoes when they enter their home, while others do not dare to do so, out of politeness.
We cover kilometers with it on asphalt or on the lawn. Our shoes collect a lot of dirt from the outside. Some therefore ask their guests to take off their shoes before entering their home, like Élise Guerrillot. She even offers slippers to the France Télévisions teams. But some people don’t dare ask, out of politeness. For Élise, removing her shoes helps maintain the hygiene of her apartment.
In Japan, this is a social rule
Shoes out, slippers in: a very widespread tradition in many cultures in Japan, where it is a social rule. In France, some adopt this rule without problem, while some recalcitrants refuse. According to a specialist from the Pasteur Institute, even if our shoes can carry a plethora of bacteria, soil contamination is of little importance in terms of health. For a sociologist, making guests take off their shoes is therefore more about hospitality than hygiene.
