Britain is considered the most polite country in Europe, according to a new survey.
But its European neighbors are not far behind, with over half of the countries in the European Union among the top 25 countries in the world considered the most polite and welcoming to foreigners.
This survey, conducted by the American money transfer company Remitly, interviewed nearly 5,000 people from 26 countries to ask which nations they consider to be the most well-mannered and to what extent they perceive themselves as polite, in order to compare the global perception of politeness to the image that countries have of their own courtesy.
To self-assess, participants answered questions about their own behavior, such as whether they treat strangers with respect, and were scored based on the degree of agreement with each statement.
Not surprisingly, overall ratings and self-perception were often mismatched.
On a global scale, the UK was ranked the third most polite country by those surveyed, behind Canada in second place and Japan in first.
According to the survey, this ranking is explained by certain social habits, such as the frequent use of “please” and “thank you” in daily life, self-deprecation, and respect for queues. Ironically, those surveyed in the UK themselves place in the lower half of countries in terms of politeness. Perhaps the British are too polite to promote themselves.
Similarly, Germany, considered by others to be the fifth most polite country due to its emphasis on privacy, punctuality, and attentiveness to others, only ranks 21st for perceived politeness.
Ironically, French respondents consider themselves the fifth most polite people, while the rest of the world ranks them 19th in the global ranking.
As for Japan, the favorite in the survey, its residents only rank themselves 25th in politeness, the second-to-last place among all countries surveyed.
However, the study authors note that when it comes to self-assessment of politeness, less than one point separates the countries with the highest and lowest scores, showing that most people tend to consider themselves polite.
Here is the complete list of survey results:
This text has been translated with the help of artificial intelligence. Report a problem: [feedback-articles-fr@euronews.com].
