A rather brilliant blog-friend of mine recently wrote this:

If, as my Japanese Japanese-language instructor was fond of saying, "In English, the purpose of communication is to exchange information. In Japanese, the purpose of communication is to not hurt anyone's feelings." Then, in French, the purpose of communication is argumentation.

I don't know Japanese and I've never been to Japan, so I can't speak to the truth on that matter. But as someone who is up close and personal with the French language and French culture, all I can say is: It's SO true!

Of course, French isn't all about the argument.
Oh no.
It's also about hiding information.

English is (certain scientific papers and purposely abstruse novels aside) all about clarity, brevity and giving 'just the facts, ma'm'. It can be a playful language, but in general, it doesn't jerk you around.

French, in contrast, is excellent for talking endless circles around a point and never getting there. And I'm convinced that this is so because French people don't want you to know anything.
Seriously.
Kind of.

Over the years, with the full agreement of my very French husband, I have come to the conclusion that French culture is, at some deep level, an insiders' culture. The basic information that you need in order to get around, work and live is not easily available. Even if you peruse all the booklets, read all the road signs and just ask right out, point blank, you ( the sad outsider not lucky enough to be born and raised in France) will find it very, very hard to find out the basic things you must know to get by.

Whereas US culture often seems like it's aimed at a population that has no common sense (hence we find the plastic coffee cups that read Caution: Hot beverages are hot! and the packages of peanuts that say Warning: May contain nuts), French culture and the resulting societal infrastructure assume that if you don't already have certain information, you probably don't really need, deserve or have any right to it, anyway.
So, why should they make it easy for you?

Just driving on French roads is a trial for someone used to the well-marked highways in the USA. JP and I made lots of roadtrips in the States, back in the day before GPS and GoogleMaps, so I can attest to the fact that you can actually use roadsigns to find your way around the US.
In France, not so much. The indicators tend to be sporadic and disappear at crucial junctions. This is particularly true on the 'departement' roads, where one minute you're driving to Tours and the next you're at a roundabout that indicates four different towns, none of them Tours.
If you don't already know where you're going, you're never going to get there.
And, sadly, this is true in most other areas of French life.

This year, our daughters started at collège (see previous posts for details). The school sent reams of paper, chock- full of information. We were informed of the many classes there were, shown the floor plan of the school and told that the principal was hoping the children would have a good rentrée. We were NOT however, given any info about things like how to use the cafeteria or take the bus.

When JP went to the "information" evening at the school, they spent 2 hours reading outloud all the information off the papers they'd previously sent to the parents. Any word about buses or lunches or any other pressing matter not covered by the papers?

Nope.
The "information night", it turns out, was more of a social event than an actual tool for giving out useful facts. French people are nothing if not very social. They like that sort of thing. They'd much rather sit around chatting with each other in a classroom than sit all alone at home reading a silly old bit of paper.
And the details of school life? They know it all already. Nearly all of the parents went to the school when they were kids. It's obvious how the cafeteria works and the sports association and the bus service. Perfectly obvious. If you were born here.
If you weren't, your only dependable source for info will be other parents.
The trick is, of course, getting them to talk to you. It's a problem because French people deeply dislike talking to people they don't already know. In fact, most of them don't even like talking to people who aren't in their own family.

While the average US citizen can handle being addressed by a stranger in the street and, in fact, is usually pleased to be able to show how much they know about the neighborhood, local restaurants, buses, etc, the average French person is taken aback and, though he might possibly answer your question, no elaborations will be offered. You'll get the strict minimum.

Example:
Confused American: "Excuse me. Is this the stop for the bus to Annemasse?"
French person also standing at the bus stop: "Yes." *moves to stand as far away as possible*

In contrast:
Confused French person: "Excuse me. Is this the stop for the bus to Omaha?"
American person also waiting: "Why yes, it is. But you have to be careful. You want the number 32, not the number 23. That one also stops here, but it will take you to Red Cloud. I'm going to Omaha, though, so you just get on when I do, Ok? And you have correct change for the fare, right? You have to have correct change. Good. So, where are you from? Would you like a piece of gum?"

We see in this sample conversation (which I completely and totally made up, but which manages to convey the underlying structure of many, many exchanges I have seen or been in) that the French person is not sharing what he knows. In fact, the French person in the first exchange knows that the day is a public holiday and no buses are running at all. He is not waiting for a bus, but is actually waiting for his cousin to pick him up. But he wasn't asked for details and sure as heck isn't going to volunteer any to a complete stranger! Quelle horreur!

On the other hand, in the second scenario, the English-speaker offers lots of other relevant information ( as well as a confectionary treat!). She assumes that if you asked about the bus, that means you probably want to get on it and go somewhere. And she is pleased that she can help you with this is some small way.

With the French, everything is assumed, and nothing. They'll assume that you have plenty of friends and family and have no need of any friendship from them. They'll assume that you have all the information that you need for your life to function smoothly. Doing otherwise would be, for them, tantamount to assuming that you are an idiot- which isn't very nice, right?
So, they don't mean it in a bad way, really...
On the other hand they wouldn't dare assume that just because you ask about a bus, you might want to actually ride on it. Or just because your kids are enrolled in a school, they might need to eat lunch there. That would be so presumptuous!

Actually, I'd have to say that they mostly just plain don't like outsiders. And helping outsiders become insiders is not the French idea idea of fun.

Being a foreigner in France requires becoming a skilled player of Twenty Questions. You ask and ask and ask some more. You persist until you are pretty sure you have the subject narrowed down to its smallest elements. And even then, there's probably stuff nobody's going to tell you.

And don't think you're going to use the internet to help out. There's lots of vital stuff in France that has no web-presence. For example, my kids' schools (both big schools-one private and one public) don't even have websites.

There's too much stuff they just don't want you to know.

It was Sir Francis Bacon who wrote that "knowledge is power". (He was British, but don't think that the French don't believe this with every fiber of their being.) It's power and not something to be freely given to just anybody, especially if that anybody is not exactly from around here.