"....... French society being very rigid and codified in ways that are hard for people that have not lived there to understand.
.......... There is a certain respect/fear/apathy that the 'rulers' rule and the people listen".
I held off this thread for a while, having lived in France for a few years now and am mindful of the sensitivities involved, but here goes.
The French education system loves certificates and medals. From the DIY store to the local prefecture and beyond you are dealing with folks who have a formal paper qualification in their line of work and have come to expect their opinion to be paramount. The result is in many, even very minor transactions, you are dealing with a formalised authority gradient......or as the admiral put it, it's "ruler/people".
France
is a fantastic country 99% of the time, but often there is resentment of correction, criticism or contradiction, no matter how well intentioned and how diplomatically phrased. I rather hope that side of the national character is absent from the flight deck.