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Mayor refuses to give 'la bise' to her 73 colleagues * * * * Save German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and France's President Emmanuel Macron give each other "la bise" on December 13, 2017 at La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and France's President Emmanuel Macron give each other "la bise" on December 13, 2017 at La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP * Henry Samuel, Paris 31 December 2017 • 5:58pm (BUTTON) Follow Follow the author of this article * Henry Samuel Follow the topics within this article * Europe * France A French mayor has made national waves by declaring she will no longer give la bise to 73 colleagues every morning, confessing she deliberately arrived late for meetings to avoid the Gallic greeting kiss. Aude Picard-Wolff, the mayor of Morette, in Isère, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, expected to raise a few eyebrows after emailing each of her municipal colleagues to say from now on she preferred to "shake hands". But little did she know the message would go viral and ignite soul-searching in the media over the quintessentially French way of saying "bonjour". Ms Picard-Wolff, a Green said that it was simply too much for her to give a peck to droves of colleagues every time she held a meeting. French President Emmanuel Macron (R)and French Junior Minister for Gender Equality Marlene Schiappa kiss after delivering a speech during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women French President Emmanuel Macron (R)and French Junior Minister for Gender Equality Marlene Schiappa kiss after delivering a speech during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP "I have enough of giving la bise to dozens of people. I hope that my action will contribute to making people think so that everyone can feel free to give or not give la bise as an elected official, in his or her profession or in any other situation," she wrote. Speaking to Dauphiné Libéré newspaper, afterwards, she confessed: "For many months, I have often arrived late to town meetings because I simply didn't want to kiss 73 local councillors." "One day, my cold came in handy and it was easier and faster to say I was ill than to explain to each and everyone my reasons for wishing to avoid la bise," she went on. "It always felt wrong to be doing la bise with people I barely knew"Aude Picard-Wolff For the mayor, it had “always felt wrong to be doing la bise with people I barely knew". She added: "I found it disagreeable, it annoyed me. We're not as free as all that when someone sticks their cheek in your direction. Even if we had done la bise for years I wanted to say that from now I would like to shake hands, like men do.” The debate comes amid soul-searching in France over gender relations in the wake of the sexual harassment scandal engulfing Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. "Men don't give each other la bise except when in the home or with close friends. This is, in a low-level but daily way, a issue of gender quality," said the mayor. Ms Picard-Wolff said she had received many messages of support - including from many men who they had never known how to handle the practice or whether "a woman would take it the wrong way". Alain d’Iribarne, a labour sociologist and economist, said the French fad for la bise took off after the student uprisings of 1968 which promoted "familiarity over hierarchical distance". It has caught on even more of late due to "open-plan offices" and emphasis on "harmonious" groups. But he said things may be changing. "Today, a new generation of feminists sees in these practices the domination of man over woman. We hesitate a little more in demonstrating this form of familiarity," he told 20 Minutes. Confusion is compounded by the fact that the number of kisses varies between regions from one to five, as do the rules on which cheek to start with, raising the risk of being left high and dry. One Frenchman has even created a website called combiendebises.com (how many kisses) to clarify the situation, in which French have voted for how many kisses they give per region. French-based British comedian Paul Taylor summed up the kissing conundrum in an online film that has been viewed 2.8 million times. [VIDEO] French people kiss hello #LaBise #LOL Hard for #English #Expats in #Paris. here: https://t.co/VJLWVIgvic pic.twitter.com/stCwNnMfVK — French Fried Comedy (@FrenchFriedTV) January 1, 2016 For him, besides gender issues by far the worst thing about la bise is that "when you go out for a drink with friends, before you can actually drink a drink, you have to say hello to them all individually (with a kiss)". One regional newspaper Le Populaire du Centre even timed how long it took one young female journalist to complete a round of morning bises on both cheeks and found that over a year it amounted to three working days. IFRAME: https://www.youtube.com/embed/0IzvLyqsY1A But business coach Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun said that it would be a shame to kill off the tradition, which he said was a sign of healthy Gallic resistance to globalisation and international norms. It was, he told FranceTVInfo a way of saying: “Here we are in our little gaulois village, and in our little gaulois village we do la bise." 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