Public toilets in France are just like any in Europe. They are usually free and generally well-maintained. Typically, only a universally recognized symbol will indicate which to use. Unisex toilets (toilettes unisexes) are still rare in France but slowly appearing in Paris and other large cities.
Gender-Neutral Bathrooms
Some European bathrooms have shared hand-washing facilities for women and men, with adjacent but separate toilet areas. And some restrooms make no distinctions for gender at all.
Types of Toilets in France
Most likely, you'll find a regular toilet, but it is also possible that you could find a squat toilet, which is essentially a hole in the floor. For these, you will need to squat and hover to do your business.
Even toilets are different- American toilets flush with handles, while French toilets have two buttons that release different amounts of water. Fun fact: some toilet paper in France is pink!
The location of French toilets is tied to a number of cultural issues, especially public vs. private space and concepts of clean vs. dirty. The entry way in a French home often illustrates the separation of public and private space.
Family style, unisex, or single-user restrooms (often called handicapped restrooms) offer flexibility: males or females, and one or more individuals (i.e. family members), of the same or opposite sex, can use them.
Men and women can totally use the same toilet. In fact, most of the time they do exactly that. Segregated toilets are the exception, not the rule.
LOOK FOR THE SIGNS ON THE DOOR
Gender-neutral bathrooms aren't a thing here yet, except in very small places where there's only room for one small bathroom. If there are two sets of bathrooms available, you'll probably get side-eye from Italians if you don't use your gender's bathroom.
“In order to do justice to the diversity of gender identities, male, female and unisex toilets will be available.” The move follows the introduction of a third official gender category into German law last January.
Although unisex restrooms are much more common in Scandinavia, you might find them in Germany as well. Besides the single lockable room type, there's the larger type with private stalls and a common wash area.
One of the great things about same-sex washrooms is that they are completely inclusive and can work to tackle transgender issues in all commercial environments. Unisex washrooms also mean parents of older children can accompany them to keep an eye on them much more easily.
Europe. In Southern and Eastern Europe including parts of France, in Greece, Albania, Balkans, and Russia they are common, especially in public toilets. But the trend in Russia is to move away from squat toilets. Squat pit latrine toilets are present in some rural areas of Eastern Europe.
Yes, squat toilets still exist, but they are becoming rarer with each passing year. The most common places they are found are probably train stations and parks.
2 – Using the Toilet in a French Café
If it's a big and busy Parisian café, just get in and open your eyes for a staircase – toilets are often located one floor down or one floor up. Don't ask anything and just go. If you are in an extremely touristy area though, toilets may be for patrons only.
You enter an empty bathroom, you must take the space at the end, farthest from the door. The next to arrive can then pick the other end, and should a third person need to use the facilities, they can take the middle. Only use a urinal next to someone when there's no choice but to.
Any household shared by men and women inevitably deals with a pressing question: what do you do with the toilet seat after it's used? Conventionally, it's considered courteous for men to always lower the seat back down after they've urinated.
According to these rules, males should use restrooms as quickly as possible, maximize physical separation from each other when using urinals, flush urinals when they contain concentrated urine, avoid stalls with unflushed toilets, and avoid eye contact and communication with others.
Gender-neutral bathroms can provide a more welcoming and comfortable situation for two people of different genders. Parents or guardians with children of a different gender can encounter misunderstanding when accessing gender-speci c bathrooms. Gen- der-neutral bathrooms can alleviate this poten- tial misunderstanding.
The ADA Standards require that unisex toilet rooms, where provided, have privacy latches and contain at most one lavatory, one water closet, and one urinal (or a second water closet) (§213.2. 1).
With Jack and Jill bathroom suites, space is shared, or at least that's the idea behind it. A Jack and Jill Bathroom is a bathroom that has two doors and is usually accessible from two bedrooms.
If you were 'today years old' when you learned that the French people prefer their toilet paper pink, you're not alone. But why is pink such a popular choice in France, I hear you ask. Well, if we rewind a little, to around the 1960's, France started using recycled paper to manufacture their loo rolls.
The French have a saying, "les toilettes sont pour les pipi et le bidet est pour le caca". This means "the toilet is for peeing and the bidet is for pooping". And that's exactly what they do! The bidet is very popular in France and it's used to clean your bottom after using the toilet.
Newer toilets in France now have two buttons for the flush: a big one and a smaller one. Alternatively, there may be two buttons that have different icons: one with one drop, another with several drops. These buttons control the water amount being flushed.