Your manager messages the team Slack on Tuesday afternoon. "On fait un pot pour l'arrivée d'Antoine demain à 17h en salle Toulouse." You look at the message and feel like you have walked in halfway through a French sitcom. You do not know what a pot is. You do not know whether it is mandatory. You do not know whether to bring anything. By 17h Wednesday you are standing in the meeting room holding a plastic flute of cheap crémant, surrounded by colleagues laughing at a joke you missed.
This is the pot, and you will encounter twenty of them in your first year.
What a pot actually is
A pot, short for pot de l'amitié, is an office gathering that lasts ten to thirty minutes. Cheap sparkling wine, soft drinks, petits fours, a few bowls of olives and peanuts. Everyone stands. The honoured person says a few words. People raise their glasses. It dissolves on its own when the wine bottles are empty.
The French throw a pot for almost any human milestone that touches the office. There are five common types.
Pot d'arrivée. New person joins the team. Hosted by their manager, usually within the first month.
Pot de départ. Someone leaves, whether for a new job, parental leave, retirement, or relocation. The leaver pays for the drinks, and the team pays for a card and small gift.
Pot de promotion. Someone gets promoted, often to cadre. The promotee usually pays. This one matters most because the social signal is loudest.
Pot d'anniversaire. Birthday, ages 30, 40 and 50 in particular. The person whose birthday it is brings the drinks and pastries.
Pot de naissance. Someone has a baby, or the partner of someone in the team does. The new parent brings drinks and chocolates a few weeks after their return.
What to do when it is someone else's
Show up. Stay for at least fifteen minutes. Find the person being celebrated, congratulate them in person with two or three sentences, then circulate.
The two or three sentences are important. "Félicitations Antoine, on est ravis de t'avoir dans l'équipe, j'ai hâte de bosser ensemble" is enough. The French do not need eloquence, they need genuine attention.
Eat a few petits fours, drink half a glass of crémant or a glass of juice, talk to two or three colleagues who you do not normally cross. Then leave.
You do not need to bring anything to someone else's pot. The cost is on the host or the celebrated person.
What to do when it is yours
This is where the panic usually hits.
You are expected to bring drinks and snacks. Budget around 80 to 150 euros for a team of fifteen, less for a smaller team. Two or three bottles of crémant, a bottle or two of red wine, some sparkling water, a bottle of orange juice, three or four trays of petits fours from a boulangerie, a few bowls of olives and chips.
The supermarket near your office sells almost all of this in a single trip. Picard does decent frozen petits fours that you can heat in the office oven.
Time it for 17h or 17h30 on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Avoid Mondays (people are still settling in) and Fridays (people have already mentally left).
Send the calendar invite a week ahead. Use the meeting room your manager suggests. Pick up your tray at lunchtime so you are not running around stressed at 16h45.
When the moment comes, raise your glass, say a few warm sentences about being grateful for the team or excited about the next chapter, and let the room do the rest. Two minutes. No long speeches. The French value brevity here more than eloquence.
The unspoken rules
If you skip a pot d'arrivée for someone in your team without a real reason, you will be remembered for it.
If you skip a pot de départ for someone who has been with the company for years, you will be remembered for it.
You are not expected to drink alcohol. Nobody cares what is in your glass.
If your team has a culture of giving cards and gifts at pots de départ, contribute to the kitty. Five to fifteen euros is typical. The HR person or a senior in the team usually circulates an envelope.
If you have a religious or personal reason not to drink, mention it once to your manager, and they will arrange juice or sparkling water alongside the wine. They are used to it.
Honest take
The pot is the social equivalent of a small commit message to the team. Show up. Say the right two sentences. Eat a few olives. Leave on time. Do that for the first year and you will be treated as someone who knows how the office works.
The Indians who get caught out by the pot are the ones who try to opt out entirely, or who treat it as optional. The French take it seriously. So can you.