To an Anglophone, the French spoken in Switzerland may sound much like that used in France, but don't say that to a Parisian.

Read the full article: Swiss French: 'Same dish but different spices'

When I think of Swiss French I always think of this man

The man sounds like uncle Jules (jr) who I first met in Hyères-Toulon when he was 98 years old and second when he was 99. On the fist visit, the women (youngish 86 years only) were in downtown and so we walked to the nearest bistro. In the afternoon there were guests from Bordeaux, Paris and Alsace-Lorraine, so that I could experience the varieties of French language first hand, even if I talked with the Alsaciens in German (halfway between dialect and standard) and uncle Jules and me including some pieces of Arabic

As a person from the Swiss-French part of Switzerland, having visited Paris on several occasions, all I can say is that some Parisians behave in an arrogant way towards those not speaking French exactly like their own.

Dommage (a shame).

Real Parisians detest everybody from the "province" be they from Nice, Marseille, Grenoble, Lyon, Geneva, Dijon, Nancy, St. Malo, Dinard, Rennes, or Bordeaux They are the centre of the world. We for years issued an aviation yearbook and had a nice chap as correspondent for France, in Paris. After a while, I found out that he only cared for the Greater Paris area but regarded "outer France" as irrelevant. I then took over "non-Paris-area-France" which to me was a lot of work but also a chance to improve my French, even if my "accent Maghrebine-Suisse" was not really a "bestseller". But if confronted by the mentality in question you have to get through it

I much prefer the anglosaxon positive attitude towards the different accents and varieties of English compared to the Parisian-style snobbishness of what they consider the only way one should speak French. If they would already stop mocking people's accents (which they even do with native French speakers from a different country), they would maybe get some more respect for the language from non-native speakers as well.

Which Anglo-Saxon attitude, lol? My relatives from London and Surrey do NOT have a very open attitude about Northern accents, I can assure you! My sil and bil, and others in the family would be totally unable, or rather unwilling to understand a strong Scouser or Geordie, let alone a Brummie! (Liverpool, Newcastle and Birmingham), I can assure you

BTW there are so many very strong regional accents in France. And here in CH, a trained ear will quickly and clearly identify a Neuchatel from a Vaud, a Fribourg from a Valais or Genevan accent. I live near the Neuchatel / French Franche-Comté border, and the Franche-Comté (dept 25 Pontarlier) is just as strong and slow as Neuchatel, but with a totally different emphasis- hilarious.