Paryż i Warszawa: Stolice i ich mieszkańcy w oczach młodzieży polskiej i francuskiej
Paris and Warsaw: The capitals and their inhabitants in the eyes of Polish and French youth

Summary/Abstract: The author attempts to reconstruct the everyday picture of two capitals, Paris and Warsaw, together with their inhabitants, as entertained by the young French and Polish generation. The reconstruction is based on two questionnaires conducted in the spring of 2006 among two groups young people: French (107 respondents) and Polish (215 respondents). The results of the questionnaires are preliminary but help identify certain tendencies.In the responses of the French interviewees, Paris is portrayed as a capital, a world centre of fashion and culture, a big and beautiful city, constantly teeming with foreign visitors. Emphasized are the city’s peculiarity as a cultural phenomenon and its exogenic functions, designed to meet the needs of visitors; downplayed are elements which result from the town’s endogenic functions.The picture of Warsaw and its inhabitants is ambiguous and combines dislike and admiration. It is a richer and a more complex picture than that of Paris. The differences may result from the unequal number of French and Polish respondents but also from the dynamics of Warsaw’s development, parallel with transformations in the rest of the country, as well as from the city’s complicated past.In the pictures of the inhabitants of the two cities, the dominant features are connected with everyday life (negative ones, e.g. stress, haste, lack of education, snobbery, and positive ones, e.g. good education, participation in culture). The social features result in a rather negative image: arrogance and indifference are more important than etiquette; the positive features have to do with appearance (good looks and elegance) and wealth. In the eyes of the respondents, the inhabitants of the two towns are similar in many respects and behave in ways viewed as similar by external observers.

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