Living in France is a bitter-sweet experience, definitely when you come from a country like the UK or US. One of the biggest things to come to terms with is the different level of service you get in shops et, especially when there's a complaint to be made.

It all comes down to personality and first impressions - stride into a shop and declare that you've been sold faulty goods and you'll get nowhere! To imply that the shop assistant is at fault (even if they were) will immediately create a huge obstacle to returning or even replacing the goods. I had a friend who bought an iron and tried to iron some curtains. Immediately the thermostat on the iron broke, it heated up fully and melted a hole in the curtains. She took it back and berated the shop keeper, who berated her back about how stupid she was for putting such a hot iron on the curtains, and so it went on. She did get a replacement iron, but was too exhausted to fight for any compensation with the curtains.

However, it goes the other way too. Go into a shop and side with the assistant on how they have to put up with horrible customers, and they'll see you as one of the nice ones and go a long way to help you out. A vague example is my parents who were holidaying in the south somewhere. On their return trip there was a transport strike (must have been a Friday), and there were no trains back to the city where they'd get a link to the airport. They tried for a taxi but they were also on strike. In the end they tried the local buses, and found only a few were running, but none to where they needed to go (they were trying to get to another train station where they had heard they could get a train that was still running). After listening to their story, the bus driver said not to worry, and he'd take his bus off route just to drop them off at the station. I couldn't imagine this happening in the UK, but it seems to fit in with what I've learnt about the french. Just don't blame them for anything, ever!