CBS News
Should you tip your French waiter? Here’s what to know ahead of Paris Olympics.
Americans are barely clear on when and where it’s appropriate to tip stateside, let alone what customs apply in France. As they prepare to join the 15 million people around the world traveling to the City of Light for the upcoming Olympics, U.S. tourists could benefit from knowing the accepted etiquette on tipping in Paris.
While changing tipping norms at home have American consumers frustrated over how often they’re prompted to leave a gratuity, a completely different set of unspoken rules govern tipping expectations overseas — and some French restaurant operators may be eager to take advantage of foreigners’ ignorance.
At restaurants in France, bills automatically include a service fee of 15% to cover servers’ wages, and so waitstaff there are not dependent on tips to make a living like they are in the U.S. Instead, it’s up to the discretion of the patron to decide if the service was good enough to warrant extra gratuity of a couple Euros, referred to as a “pourboire,” literally meaning “for drink.”
Another cultural difference: All manner of service people, including waiters and salespeople, are typically less solicitous of customers than they are in the U.S., in part because good service doesn’t come with the kind of monetary reward that accompanies it in the U.S. In other words, don’t expect your food to arrive promptly, or with a smile.
“The expression of service is not necessarily fast and attentive like it is here in U.S.,” said Erika Rodriguez, an operations specialist at travel site Going.com, who has spent the past four summers in France. “That’s not to say it’s a bad experience, but they want to make clear they are not your servant. They are very direct.”
Are restaurants taking advantage?
It’s no secret that European establishments prefer Americans over other nationalities of tourists precisely because they’re inclined to tip so generously. And some visitors to France report that restaurants are trying to squeeze extra cash out of tourists by encouraging them to leave the kind of gratuity they would in the U.S.
The trick was so common in St. Bart’s the last time she visited, that travel guru Melissa Biggs Bradley, founder of the Indagare travel agency, referred to it as “the St. Bart’s scam.”
“All the restaurants were asking people if they would like to leave tips without acknowledging that gratuity is built in,” Bradley told CBS MoneyWatch.
Going.com’s Rodriguez noted that in Paris, it’s a more common tactic at touristy spots, versus restaurants that draw local crowds. “They bring you a credit card machine with suggested tips comparable to amounts you leave in the U.S.,” she told CBS MoneyWatch.
Bending the rules
While hardly illegal, experts say it does amount to taking advantage of generous diners who are unfamiliar with foreign customs.
Brian Warrener, who has researched tipping norms across Europe and how they differ from those in the U.S., said in France, he uncovered what he referred to as “a little bit of a bending of the rules.”
“Especially in places where lots of Americans are traveling, restaurants will include a line on the bottom in English saying tipping is not included, even though there’s a 15% service charge,” Warrener told CBS MoneyWatch. “So they are clearly trying to communicate to folks who may not know the tipping forms in France.”
He noted that some operators use tablets to accept payment that include prompts for tips of 15% to 30%, a practice he suspects is becoming more widespread in anticipation of visitors arriving in Paris for the Olympics.
“In the U.S., that would be an inflated tip, but in France, where tipping is not part of compensation, it’s taking advantage,” Warrener said.
Bradley of Indagare offered advice for avoiding the tipping ruse. “If you pay by credit card and are prompted to leave a tip, ask if service is included,” Bradley said.
Be forewarned: “They might try to fudge it, but they can’t say ‘no’ when it is. They could say it’s a question of whether or not you want to give me something for nice service. But it’s absolutely standard, so the assumption should be you’re paying the service,” he added.
How much should I leave at a restaurant?
Given that a service charge is already baked into the total cost of a meal, servers aren’t expecting a whole lot extra. It is common though, to leave a little bit of loose change if you’re getting a coffee or meal, to reward good service. Rounding up a bill from 13.50 Euros to 14 Euros, or leaving a few Euros is usually sufficient.
“What Europeans are accustomed to doing when they get good service is they’ll round up the bill to say, ‘Nice job, here’s a little something extra,'” Warrener said.
He adds that, as a general rule, it’s incumbent on tourists to familiarize themselves with other countries’ customs before jetting overseas.
“If you go to France and don’t understand the tipping culture and assume it’s like it is in the U.S., they’re making it easy for you to make a mistake to their benefit,” he said.
The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with controversial anti-personnel mines in its war against Russia, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News Tuesday night.
Anti-personnel mines, or APLs, are designed to be used against people, not vehicles. They can be rapidly deployed and are meant to blunt the advances of ground forces, making them useful for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s advances in Eastern Ukraine, the official said.
The U.S. sought commitments from the Ukrainians on their use to further limit the risk to civilians, the official said, noting that Ukrainians are committed to not employing the mines in areas populated with their own civilians.
The U.S.-provided APLs are different than the thousands of landmines being employed by Russia in eastern Ukraine in that they are “non-persistent,” meaning they become inert over a preset period of time, usually between four hours and two weeks, the official said. They are electrically fused and require battery power to detonate. Once the battery runs out, they will not detonate.
Tuesday marked 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. CBS News learned Sunday that President Biden had lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons to conduct strikes deep inside Russia.
U.S.-supplied ATACMS were used Tuesday on targets inside Russia, U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News.
Ukraine has been one of the most mined countries in the world since Russia’s invasion in 2022, and Ukraine is inundated with APLs. They are known by deceptively innocent names such as “butterfly” or “petal” mines because they scatter like flower petals when they drop from the sky.
Getty Images
“Typically, several hundred of these at a time will just be liberally and indiscriminately spread across the territory,” Pete Smith, the Ukraine program manager for the HALO Trust, a nonprofit organization focused on ridding warzones of landmines, told “60 Minutes” in August. “They can rest on the roofs. They can sit in guttering. They can take years before they come back into society and into view.”
To date, 164 nations, including Ukraine, have signed onto the Mine Ban Treaty which prohibits the use of APLs. However, three dozen countries have not agreed to it, including Russia and the U.S.
In January 2020, then-President Donald Trump reversed an Obama-era policy which banned the use of APLs anywhere except on the Korean Peninsula. However, in June 2022, Mr. Biden reinstated the ban, except for APLs “required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.”
contributed to this report.
ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) – At least two people were injured after a possible gas explosion and ensuing fire destroyed a condominium building Tuesday evening in Orion Township, Michigan, officials said. Another two people remain unaccounted for.
According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, the explosion was reported at about 6:30 p.m. local time in the Keatington New Town Association condominium complex on Waldon Road, between Joslyn and Baldwin roads.
Orion Township Fire Chief Ryan Allen says the explosion destroyed a four-unit building, causing significant damage to one building and minimal damage to a few others. Allen says crews worked with utility providers DTE and Consumers Energy to control a gas leak.
Photo submitted by Orion Township resident
Allen says the two people hospitalized, a 72-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman, suffered critical injuries. Their current condition is unknown. An unknown number of others suffered minor injuries, he added.
Allen said crews were working to make contact with two people who are unaccounted for.
The sheriff’s office said no fatalities have so far been reported.
“Preliminary indications are it was a gas explosion but the exact cause has not been determined,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Orion Township is located just north of Detroit.
One resident who lives nearby told CBS News Detroit he was home with family when the explosion happened.
“We just heard this big boom [It] shuck my entire house. I look out the window, I see flares, I see fire just popping through the sky,” the resident said. “It felt like it was going to take a wall down. It felt like it happened at my house. I was terrified. It was so strong.”
Consumers Energy said in a statement that because firefighters were still battling the blaze, it did “not have additional information about the cause of the explosion or about the status of anyone in the building.”
The company said its crews will get on site once they are given the greenlight that it is safe to do so.
CBS News
Comedian Katt Williams often brags about passing Marine boot camp. The Marines say they have no record of it.
Los Angeles — Katt Williams, the Emmy-winning actor and renowned stand-up comedian, for years has claimed to have joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a teenager and successfully navigated the rigorous training only to be drummed out of the military when his superiors discovered he was a minor. The Marines told CBS News they have no record of him.
Dating back to at least 2016, Williams has claimed association with the U.S. Marine Corps when talking about his personal biography in video blogs, in his stand-up routines and in interviews viewed and heard by tens of millions of people. His claims of military service seem to not be attached to any of his critically acclaimed jokes or characters he has created for stage and screen but instead, a part of his journey towards comedy.
The U.S. Marine Corps tells CBS News there’s no record of Williams ever entering military service or attending any Marine Corps recruit training camps.
Multiple emails and phone calls were sent to Williams’ publicist, Amy Sisoyev, and his representatives at Creative Artists Agency, but no reply was returned for almost two weeks.
Earlier this year, Williams sat down for a nearly 3-hour interview with ESPN’s “First Take” correspondent Shannon Sharpe on his podcast, “Club Shay Shay.” The interview has racked up more than 83 million views on YouTube as of publication and is the most watched interview in YouTube’s history.
Sharpe, a former Denver Bronco and ex-NFL analyst for CBS Sports, asked Williams about being raised in Florida.
“I try to join the Marine Corps and they won’t accept me because I’m too young, and I’ve lied and told them I’m 16 and my family is moving down and I don’t have my ID but it’s coming. And so they [the Marines] let me go to the boot camp,” said Williams.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Similarly, on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast last year, Williams said, “And then I attempt to join the Marine Corps, and I go off to boot camp and I pass, and then they reveal that I’m too young, and they give me a little ceremony because I did pass, you know, oo-Rah.”
He added: “I wasn’t even 16. I wasn’t even 16. I was already — I had miscalculated it wrong. I thought that you know, by the time I got back I would be good, but I hadn’t turned 16 by the time boot camp was over.”
Maron, whose “WTF” podcast garners more than 55 million listens per year, asked Williams if he got through boot camp and about his ceremony.
Williams reaffirmed that he passed boot camp, saying, “When you come back everybody gets the ceremony and I was supposed to have been, probably put in the brig or court-martialed or something, but they didn’t treat me like that. … As far as the Marine Corps thing, whatever those commercials were selling, you remember those commercials back in that time … if you wanted to join a gang, the Marines was the gang to join.”
On Saturday, CBS News attended the Vulture Festival in Los Angeles where Williams was interviewed about his life and career by Jesse David Fox, a Vulture writer and host of “Good One: The Podcast About Jokes.” Williams is set to launch his multistate “Heaven on Earth” tour next year.
While Williams did not discuss his alleged short stint in the Marines, the comedian said “Thank God I tell the truth” when asked by Fox about his past statements in interviews.
CBS News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records pertaining to Williams’ alleged enlistment in the Marine Corps.
Marine Corps officials searched for records pertaining to Williams using his full name — Micah Sierra Williams — and other identifying information such as his date of birth and social security number. Officials told CBS News that their database of official military personnel files dates back to the 1960s, housed at the National Personnel Records Center of the National Archives.
“We searched the files maintained by the Manpower Management Performance Branch but were unable to identify Mr. Williams as a member or former member of the U.S. Marine Corps,” wrote an official in response to CBS News’ public records request.
Marine Corps officials told CBS News that if Williams’ story was accurate, there would be records showing his entry into military service, his graduation and discharge, even if he fraudulently enlisted as a minor.
Army veteran Anthony Anderson, who runs “Guardians of Valor,” a popular social media website that investigates service member records, told CBS News that Williams’ claims are a “slap in the face of people who have earned the title of Marine.”
“Boot camp for the Marine Corps is not an easy task. To call yourself a Marine, you have to go through at least 13 weeks of boot camp and successfully navigate the crucible … people have died in training at boot camp trying to earn the title of Marine,” said Anderson.
While it’s unclear when exactly Williams began to claim he graduated from Marine boot camp, the earliest examples CBS News could find stemmed from Williams’ 2016 feud with actor and comedian Kevin Hart.
In a video that appears to have been recorded by Williams, addressing drug abuse allegations, the comedian says, “Ever since I got out of the Marine Corps, I can only breathe out of one nostril.”
That same year, Williams was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and battery charges after a fight at an apartment complex in Gainesville, Georgia, with a 17-year-old high school wrestler who was also charged, according to previous news reports. Williams pleaded not guilty and the case lingered on until earlier this year when local prosecutors decided to drop the case against Williams.
Soon after his arrest Williams spoke about the episode on stage, suggesting that he wasn’t actually put into a chokehold by the teenager and in fact, that Williams had let him win, adding, “I’m Semper Fi till I die, Marine Corps b—-. I passed motherf—ing boot camp at 16.”
Williams’ routine was removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement issues, but the video still exists in the reader forum on Military.com, a military news and culture website. A user posted the video to the website in 2016 and asked: “Katt Williams a Marine?”
