French supremacist culture - Sales Associate BNP Paribas Employee Review

1.0
May 23, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

European level vacation days to keep the French employees happy. Some remote work opportunities remain because they don't have enough rented office space.

Cons

This place is nowhere near any US banks in the market, but their ego beats them all. What the other person said about French white male culture is absolutely true. It creates a toxic work environment against anyone perceived as other. Management is absolutely incompetent and stuck in the 1980s, just like the technology here. If the rare woman makes it past VP, they are likely French or of French upbringing. The bank basically works like an embassy, it runs to bring French people to the US who desire to move here. They operate like they are in France too, which means the old European hierarchies where you need 10 different levels of permission to get one thing done. Nothing happens here, it just goes in circles. There is a reason it did so poorly last year. If you are American, expect not to be invited to after work gatherings where the action happens, expect to be looked down on, and expect sexism if you are female or on a gender spectrum. Somehow there are no Black people working here unless they are French. No visibly non-binary or LGBTQ representation or presence is felt here. Most out-group people just keep their head down and move on as fast as they can. Basically there is no space for socially finding your place here if you are not in the in-group - straight, male, French, and white. It is not just about identity, the work culture is toxic, long, and they hardly make money. In the last few years they made the news for all the wrong reasons because of the culture, questionable investments, and subpar market performance.

Explore other reviews about BNP Paribas

5.0
May 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

love working here been here 4 years

Cons

return to office policy is tough

1.0
May 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The only good thing about this place were the Nespresso machines.

Cons

I rarely leave reviews, but future job seekers deserve fair warning. From day one, it was clear that micromanagement was a core operating principle here; not a quirk, but a feature. Managers routinely hovered over routine tasks, demanded pointless status updates multiple times a day, constantly changed directives, took credit for my work, and treated experienced professionals like they couldn't be trusted to send an email unsupervised. Any sense of autonomy was purely cosmetic. The culture was equally poisonous. Gossip wasn't background noise; it was practically a department function. Colleagues regularly spoke poorly of one another behind closed doors, cliques formed and hardened fast, and if you weren't part of the right group, you felt it. Unkind doesn't begin to cover it. Basic professionalism and common decency were in short supply. Management set the tone for all of it. Leaders who should have modeled integrity instead participated in the drama, played favorites openly, and addressed conflict with either complete avoidance or outright retaliation. HR was not a resource — it was a shield for bad behavior at the top. I left for my own sanity. The turnover rate here should tell you everything. Life is too short and your career too important to spend either in an environment like this one.

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