I would have to contextualize my earlier comments and say, Japan is the best I've been to in this category, and the USA is by far not the worst, but it is worse than Japan. Having said that, I, myself, have no particularly affinity for Parisians (although I like other parts of France), and maybe that's just a surface impression of only a few days, but I have never encountered such cold, indifferent, unhelpful and rude service people...even with fairly good French spoken on my part. Not a smile among any of 'em.
In Paris they pretty much can't be fired and they will not be promoted. Their attitude has no effect on their paycheck.