How can you tell? 
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How can you not?
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According to who?
You seem to be making generalizations about a country of 341 million people, as well as generalizations about a country of 65 million people.
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I suppose heâs correct in as much a sandwich is seen as a quick meal as opposed to a multi course meal with hot dishes, but that would be everything: Nothing can quite be a substitute for that.
The problem is that not every meal is like that in France, although the ones visitors witness will often be like that because they are eating in restaurants or maybe at large celebrations. The day to day is less visible.
However, I wonât be eating a jambon beurre, but thatâs because I donât eat pork anymore (although I do miss it).
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There are some give aways. When youâre at a place that primarily serves food to go, there will be a board up with the menu. The cluster of people in front of you who are reading every option and discussing them and having trouble figuring out what is what and what they want and fail to notice the annoyed group of people behind them who just need to grab lunch and go back to work. Finally they make a decision and step up to the counter to ask for something thatâs not on the menu and ask the counter person if they could swap one thing from one dish into another. I want to shout out are you this indecisive and clueless at home? The regulars step up and order quickly and then move out of the way to make room for the next customer.
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I see; thank you!
So that would include people who werenât working in the area, people who were unfamiliar with the restaurant and the menu, or at least unfamiliar with how lunch happens in midtown. Maybe living and working in a distant part of New York; maybe the outer boroughs?
It most certainly would include me then, which is what struck me first. I have officially lost my distinction as a âNative New Yorkerâ!.
My daughter, OTOH, who grew up in California, then moved to New York, probably makes the non tourist cut. She is annoyed by everything that slows down the fastest way of getting from A to B. She lived in Queens and Brooklyn, but worked in midtown until the pandemic, and has been mostly working remotely since then.
I think my sister is still that way, and she moved to NC decades ago!
How is business going for midtown lunch places? They have been devastated here; nearby in San Francisco.
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Exactly.
I think a lot of Anglophones have read too many books about long meandering meals in Provence.
Fast food and quick meals are part of current French culture.
Also, some of us , myself included sometimes, seem to see personal anecdotes as a rule. I have 6 relative who live in France. I have no idea what theyâre eating when Iâm not there, and I have no idea what the other 65 million people are doing for lunch.
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Hmm. My favorite sandwich when I was a student in the '70s was âsandwich au camembertâ, also on a baguette. Pate de campagne was also a favorite.
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Camembert baguette was one of my favourite things in Montreal in the 1990s, available at depanneurs (convenience stores that sometimes have sandwiches)
France is a big country, and what they do in the cities may not be indicative of the countryside. And as far as I know, many meals are taken at home. And the plat du jour is still widely available, for a quick lunch. My experience near Geneve, was most people took the work day lunch in the buildingâs canteen, and didnât grab sandwiches.
But fast-food has grown by leaps and bounds in work-week culture, and it is not just burgers anymore. The French âtacosâ, a hybrid of a doner kebab and wrap, with melted cheese, is popular (especially late at night). Takeaway pizza is also popular, as are doner kebab. The variety of takeaway options has exploded. But the corner boulangerie or sandwich shop will still have traditional sandwiches, and not just jambon beurre as I think many tastes have moved onto new combinations, including chicken, caprese/veggie, and down in the southeast, pan bagnat. At my corner sandwich shop, I will often choose a truffled ham/gruyere, or spanish serrano/machego or a pan bagnat. The baguettes in the area are never too tough or chewy, unlike in the US.
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The group of people you described generally know how things work even if they are in an unfamiliar part of the city. We donât cluster together and wander aimlessly with our neck twisting in every direction. Thereâs a purposeful moving ahead. Get outta my way Iâm walking here! Like sharks. 
You stand in a line? You know by the time what your ordering when itâs your turn.
While you were born here you left a long time ago? Correct? You are a Californian. I on the other hand moved here as a young adult but now have spent most of my life here and I am not sure I am a NYer. I donât know if I have that NY attitude that those born and raised here seem to carry. My kids are distinctly different about how they approach life in the city than me. NY is all they know and theyâre remarkably dismissive of most of the country. When they were younger and we would take them to the places their parents were from, they couldnât wait to get back to the city. If you are born and raised in what many think is the greatest city in the world, you have an attitude thatâs not the same as someone from a rural southern town.
I left NY and came to California at 28. I wonât say whether that was âa long time agoâ. 
But I do think it qualifies as âborn and raisedâ.
I must have missed that part. 
I do usually know what I want though, often before I leave California!
I am reminded of this favorite from 1973 Innervisions âŚââŚNew YorkâŚjust like I pictured it!..â.
What was this thread about? 
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Yes, always on a baguette. That was my point.
According to ME!!!
But according to you also.
Where I live, in the US, and probably where you live too, you can get a sandwich for dinner at a great number of places. So go ahead and start counting the number of places in your fair city or neighborhood where that is possible.
For me I can count multiple delis where i can get subs, places that specialize in Philly cheesesteaks, banh mi, po boys, tortas, almost every corporate casual restaurant, almost every franchise of every kind, every bar, every taqueria, it is just about unlimited the number and style of sandwiches I could get for dinner at, letâs say 8pm.
Now plop yourself down anywhere in France at 8pm (their time), find a neighborhood and start counting the number of sandwiches you could have. Or if tele-transportation is not your thing, then look on Google Maps.
I am positive your choices will be very, very limited.
I would be very careful about generalizing eating habits to an entire country. While France is not as heterogeneous as the U.S., it is certainly by no mean homogenous.
We own condos in various parts of France, and just from our very limited experience the food culture and culinary habits of those in Nice (south) or Normandy (north) or Lyon (somewhere in the middle) are very different, and all are different from Paris, which itself cannot easily be categorized or described in one glib sentence.
I like baguettes when in Paris, and I live baguette with stuff in them when in parts of France that I have either visited or lived in.
Iâll just leave it at that.
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Thereâs a difference between âproper mealâ and âdinnerâ. The UK is absolutely a sandwich place, and yet all our sandwich shops are closed by 4pm. Similar to Brussels (from when I used to be more frequently there before my mum moved to France). I have something to say too about the difference between those and places that serve food all day (where lighter fare might be available), but thatâs not really about sitting down and having dinner out at a restaurant.
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I believe your response, but it too is very generalized. If you can specifically show me where Iâm wrong, then I would like to be disproved.
Maybe in another generation or two it will be different. But I still maintain that the baguette sandwich in France is both ubiquitous and an afterthought. Yes, you can walk into any bar/tabac and get one. It isnât even listed on a menu. OF COURSE, they can make you one.
My personal belief is that the baguette sandwich is a bit of a gut buster. Even people who eat a hearty lunch (which used to be quite common in France), donât pine for one at lunchtime. And at dinner, there is no market for it. it is convenient and cheap.
I am sure anyone can point me to a specific success story, or a specific article by a food writer, but generally speaking I find itâs mostly Americans who are romanticizing it.
I fix them at home every once in a long while. Now itâs probably once a year. If that. So it does not surprise me one bit that the hamburger is now more popular in France.
I can tell youâre a transplanted New Yorker.
You can take a person out of New York but you canât take the New York out of a person. 
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I will definitely a sandwich is a more common choice at lunch, but within a few blocks of my apartment in the south in the evening I can get baguettes, philly cheesesteaks, lobster rolls, panini, hot toasted sandwiches (in baguettes, including middle eastern themed ones), a Subway, bahn mi and a little further away, a torta. They definitely are not as common on sit down menus a dinner, although many have site down seating (same can be said near me in the US; you are less likely to see a sandwich on an evening menu in the evening)âŚ
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