On the other hand, it is essential to decipher the terrain, the approximatelyneor the universe - in other wordsthe submerged part of the iceberg - in which this interaction takes place, so as to neutralizeto be our value judgment and to master the keys to understandinghension of some of our experiences and observations. Conidentifying training courses involving French people, those-these will be the better adjusted as they will take into account the tencultural barriers to the use of particular cultural dances intercultural relations.

This work, each context ofwould do it. Thus, the Germans, Americans or ChiThe cultural trends in the region must be questioned.American or Chinese companies that are a challenge to the world'sis, to project themselves internationally and to host international parties.foreigners on mission or expatriation at home. Who resists self-knowledge and self-transformation is not fit for cross-cultural relations.

Six French challenges to intercultural relations

Concerning our context, we cannot train in interculturality.ted without integrating a series of Franco-French. Sans pour We might as well pretend to be exhaustive, we will mention six of them. The first concerns our universalist model, not thethe universal vocation of certain French values (such as the human rights), but the French societal foundation founded based on the notion of the abstract person and his or her particularities, linkedor cultural in particular. It is not a question of handing over s model, but to think one of its faibles: the absence of a culture of interculturality at the national level that does not promote the development of cross-cultural skills.ltuwhen you're going international. It is customary to mention here the ban on ethnic statistics. But take another examplethe delay we have taken in France versus Belgium in media deploymentcross-cultural mentors at the hospital, while he was shown that patients' disengagement from treatment due to misunderstandings (linguistic, cultural, religious) leads to a greater risk ofrelapse [5], which represents a human cost to the patient and a financial cost to the community . Incontrast, Canada, whose model claims to be multicultural, will be moremature in terms of cross-cultural training[6] -which is notto say that Canada is devoid of weaknesses , not theleast ofwhich is thedifficulty in defining its national identity[7].

7] The second challenge is not specific to France, but it does have its own challenges. The historical roots that would deserve an analysis of the historicaldeep. This is our disastrous operation in silos, as if the French company was made up of specialists of their speciality that dialogue poorly or not at all with the specialists of other specialities, both of which are selected by thebarriers, whether ideological or religious.enforcues from stubborn prejudices and stereotypes. Just think about how difficult it is to bring together the sciences huand management sciences to get an idea of it,[8] or well to note the misunderstandings that the civil world at...with the military world. But if we do not We will not make any interculturality between us, we will not make any interculturality between us, we will not make any interculturality between us.ernational. This is why training in interculturality is first and foremost a matter of training in interdisciplinarity. In a world of complexity complexity, analyses, recommendations and operations have become increasingly important. an urgent need for cross-eyes and reading gridse di-versified. The a priori regarding what in France we callLet's lick 'em.atypical profiles"are not the same everywhere. A In the City of London, traders can have training initial in Geography or Classics. In July 2013, Oxford University has released a study on the devenir professional of students in the humanities and social sciences Oxford graduates between 1960 and 1989. A third of them today holds positions in the management of the business, finance or marketing.

The third French challenge to intercultural relations is also ai linked with the fourth and fifth that a cause with itselfs consequences. It's about our lack of cultural humility...him, often turned into a priori of excellence. Humility is a posture often misunderstood, misinterpreted as effacement or belittlement, may-be by approximation invokedlontaire with its derivative, humiliation. But it's all very simple.It is the element ofdeveloping a relationship of equals without presupposing that one knows how to do better,say better, think better, eat better, etc.Claude Lévi-Straussconsidered that if the degree of resistance to the most hostile climatic environments had been retainedas a criterion of civilization, the Eskimos and the Bé douins would be the most advanced [9]. It is not a question of falling into absolute relativism, but of understanding that others thanus may have modes of action, values and criteria ofprogress that are sometimes different, out of step with ours, but effective in theircontext , and ofgrasping what they imply in their mental universe. Theeffort of understanding is notpossible if the presupposition of the relationship contains a feeling of superiorityand a denigration of what the other is, says, thinks or does .As aconsequence of the lack of humility, the value judgment (fourth challenge) is not specifically French. All inall, it is a banal reflex wherever one is in the world.Who is not embarrassed or shocked by certain practices when travelling ? But where the French stand out from others, for example the Japanese, is in their tendency to publicly express value judgements through body or verbal language .We belong to a culture ofjudgmentwhich is the corollary of a judgment on culture [10].

By we often demonstrate more easily than others as a result.es our annoyance, our boredom, our disagreement, criticized usa suggestion in front of everyone, thus pointing out the the half-empty glass, also quick to spot immobile objects.édiately to report faults and errors, or even to report them through a ironic remark. So many redhibitory reflexes to the internathat any training in interculturality must integrate the to insist on postures that are more conducive to interaction.s. Indeed, while in most cultures of the world thes people tend to internalize the negative and externalize the negative. positive, even if we exaggerate it, we tend to make the other way aroundto externalize the negative and to limit or even neutralize it, the expression of the positive (fifth challenge). He is always singulier to see French participants in an intercultural training course very conscientiously note to "share more often the satisfaction andcompliment».

The sixth challenge concerns an illusion related to our lack of pragmatismbelieving that to know is to know how to do. However, in theintercultural approach, it is not because I am an expert in a particular culture that I have developed the skills to interact with contactsfrom that culture. I can speak perfect Japanese, know at my fingertipsthehistory, customs,gastronomy, history, literature of Japanandprove myselfto be catastrophic in my professional relations with the Japanese . However, the centre of gravity of our education system lies more in theoretical knowledgethan inpractical knowledge,leading to a devaluation of the learning process, which is not thecase in other countries, such as Switzerland or Germany .Even if this bias is tending todiminish[11], knowledgeis still largely dispensed in a masterly manner by a teacher in front of passive pupils or students. We then findthatcertain reflexes acquired in our education system are transposedto the workplacewhen anemployee ispromoted tomanagerial functions because of his or her level of knowledge and expertise, and not because of his orher interpersonal qualities andteam spirit .Internationally, this cultural trait is a handicap for cooperationwhen we evaluate others on the basis of their knowledge, nottheir know-how.We are then quick to detectinour Spanish, Ivorian or Indian partner an ignoranceor anapproximation, or even a simple "mistake"inFrench, which has thedouble effect of discrediting him and preventing us from evaluatinghismode of actiontoits true extent.

How not to train in interculturality

The poisonous recipe for not-intercultural training is, after all, quite simple to carry out. It is enough to design thea training as a course and to stick to the input of knowledge.births to a foreign culture, assuming that this flow descent necessarily comes with skills. The participants are then brought together in a meeting room, or even a classroom, and have little interaction with the environment.terveand even less between them. They don't play games.e, no role-playing, do not free up the floor on their questioning, do not analyze their feedback, do not share teachings or advice, do not identify anyes good practices, do not define the modalities for their monitoring and evaluation. And as the presenter presented the cross-cultural issues by taking stock of the different contheoretical cepts, since it describes the cultural contexts in byso many generalities before giving a few examples.usthese truths, they become convinced that adapting to these truths a foreign culture is akin to respecting the highway code. And because they have mastered theoretical knowledge, they believe that they aret ready for their next international assignment.

As for the organization behind the request for training at interculturality, it has not clearly defined its objectives. From In any case, she delegated her need to the training department.tion that has no contact with the department directly concerned and orders training courses from a catalogue without knowing whether the content effectively corresponds to the specific needs offuture participants. They may be, just as well,engineers in charge of managing an industrial project with Indian partners, negotiators workingonthe long-term relationshipwith Turkish contacts, a commercial teampreparing theresponse to a call for tenders in the Emirates, members of the marketing and communicationdepartment wondering abouttheaproduct, its packaging, advertising campaign orwebsiteisadapted to the Brazilian context , ora risk management manager wonderinghow to raise awareness and provide safety training to the employees ofhis entity 'svarioussubsidiaries. For each of these unique situations, intercultural training will be based onanidentical program presenting the cultural codes of the target countryin the morning and theprofessional codes in the afternoon.Finally, intercultural training will fail successfully in a context where theFrench challengestointercultural relations have not been takeninto account.This is particularly the casewhen the participants do not leave the position ofculturaloverhangand a prioriexcellence, encouraged in this by their company, which demandsfromthem everything but flexibility with foreign partners.The trainer is sometimes surprisedbycontactsthatjustify their need for intercultural trainingforFrench employees: "We would like themtobemore effective in... We would like them to be more effective inimposing our methods internationally", and to the partners of foreign subsidiaries: "Let them have their say sothat they canmake suggestions... aimed at better applying our ways of doing things". Basically , whatwe want is for foreigners to become like us. These arecultural trench warfare objectives that can only lead totheclumsiness of some and the demotivation of others.

We will therefore know how to train in interculturality when we will know how to fail to do so. There's certainly no miracle recipe for developing cross-cultural skillsThere's no such thing as a ready-made toolbox.e for interact with any culture. But there are condiessential, not to say universal, requirements.: humility assthe temptation of culturalism, thea neutralisation of the value judgement, the development of the sense of observation, understanding of our weak points, and the ability tothem to international, the collection of testimonials from actors in the field.and analysis of returned shipments.experience, mutual explanation of misunderstandings, research and challengenition of adjustments, identifying and building on each other'ssimilarities - and, ultimately, the awareness that we do not have that we are only dealing with singular individuals and that the cultures ofwhere they are living, complex, complex, fluid organisms.and in the making, sometimes very evident in the attitudes and behaviour, sometimes withdrawn, discreet, or even absentminded.ts, without influence. In the end, the cultural factor is only a declination of the human factor. Intercultural encounter, it's always about the other person's human relationship. itself and self-explanatory on the other. There are still many uncharted lands in to explore, as noted in his Japanese Chronicle the great traveller Nicolas Bouvier"If we can no longer hardly Today's progress in the art of self-destruction, there are many ways to do so.re du a way to go in the art of understanding each other"."[12].

5] Cf. the 2006 activity report of the Inter-Agency Mediation Service.of the CHU Brugmann in Brussels.

6] The C.A.I., Centre for Intercultural Learning, attached to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Tradeand whose clients include the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the international development, the Department of National Defence, the Department ofor the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was created in 1969. See https://www.international.gc.ca/cil-cai/index.aspx?lang=eng

7] On June 30, 2014, a Radio Canada International program on thenal asked the question: "But what kind of Canadian identity?"The subject was introduced as follows: «That makes tensince its inception in 1867, that Canadians have denied, no doubt, that are wondering what the Canadian identity is all about. ...Strangersgers who come to Canada more easily describe our identity".

8] This is less the case in the United States.-Bottom, where do some of the pioneers of intercultural management, recognized in the world, like Geert Hofstede and Fons Trompenaars.

[9] Race and historyFolio essays, pp.46-47

10] For example, during a study day on cultural intelligencee at UNESCO on February 3, 2011, we were startled, along with a part of the public originating from different African countries, whene the Director of Strategy, Development and Business Affairs of the Audiovisuel Extérieur de la France (AEF) intervened in the gallery to say that "themany countriesrecognize France's right to pass judgment on their own culture...».

[11] Notably through the increasingly widespread initiatives of «reverse classes"aimed at increasing the activity and autonomy of the students to develop their skills. See http://www.laclasseinversee.fr

[12] Payot, p.113