Before we begin, let me make it easy for you.
When you're in Paris at a café or restaurant and you want to go to the bathroom, you can ask: Où sont les toilettes? or you can just go there - because the answer is always: At the back and down the stairs.
It's an odd thing but it seems that, no matter where you go, that's always the answer. Personally, I think it's because what we call 'bathrooms' but they call 'toilets' were added so long after the buildings were built. On top of which, there isn't a whole lot of space in this town so it really doesn't make sense for them to take away money-generating space just to put in a toilet.
The French are known for their practicality - and not their orientation toward making a customer's life easy.
Now, once you know the answer to the question, it doesn't mean that your experience with la toilette is going to be the same in each location. Not by a long shot.
Hygiene is an interesting thing in Paris - mostly because there's such a sliding scale of what hygiene is considered to be.
Among the Parisians, the thinking is: "Hey, a bit of dirt really doesn't matter! You think it's going to kill you? You must be American!"
(Of note: The French rarely mistake us for the British - mostly because French people, in general, hold the British in such low regard. As a result, rather than thinking of us with contempt (British are referred to as "Rosbif" - pronounced like roast beef but with a French accent) by comparison, we're amusing and slightly provincial but, generally okay with them.)
So, you just have to be prepared for whatever you might find.
If you're in a tourist-y place, say Les Deux Magots (my favorite) or Café de Flore (which has a wonderfully entertaining website - but where I got sick from their onion soup - so I don't go there anymore) in the Sixth Arrondissement, or having a hot chocolate at Angelina's on the Rue de Rivoli (serious yum), you can expect there to be clean toilets - and a bathroom attendant.
You don't have to pay them anything - although sometimes they make it seem as if you do - but it's a nice thing to do in any case. After all, they're spending their lives in a bathroom. We can afford to be generous.
If you're hanging out away from the tourist-y areas then it's anyone's guess how clean the bathroom is going to be - so just be prepared.
But it's not just the toilets that are in play here. It's food too - and that takes me to one of my first experiences with French hygiene: Food displays and demonstrations at the Salon Internationale d'Agriculture.
Long before I moved to Paris, I began attending the Salon for business reasons. This is the premier agricultural show for the country...sort of like a State Fair on the biggest dose of steroids you could ever imagine.
I went to the Pavilion with fruits, vegetables and garden stuff to see what they had on display. What I didn't expect was how, as soon as any food got close to being put out for tasting, the French folks swarmed like locusts.
They pushed. They shoved. They grabbed.
It was, quite frankly, frightening. Besides which, I noticed that the folks putting out the apples weren't wearing gloves, were grabbing apples from wooden crates and they weren't washing them before they put them out, anyway.
I passed. Between the swarms and the questionable hygiene, I just wasn't sure if I would live through the experience.
Fast forward a few years. I was over at La Grande Epicerie a few days ago and they had a lovely young woman giving free samples of the apples. As I walked over, she happened to be cutting one up and offered me a piece. We got to talking (an interesting French/English combination that worked for us both as she's studying English...and we all know about my French) and she suddenly said, "Le GoldRush, c'est ma pomme favorite. Vous devez l'essayer!" (trans: "The GoldRush is my favorite apple. You must try it!") - at which point she walked over to the display stands, grabbed an apple, cut it and handed me a piece.
It was delicious and, as a result of the tasting I bought some - but what particularly struck me was that it wasn't until I got home and was washing the apples that I realized she wasn't wearing gloves and she didn't wash the apple before giving me a piece. And I ate it without hesitation.
Clearly this shows that my enculturation into the French way of life continues apace. Moreover, I've lived to tell the tale.
So, when you make your way to Paris, don't sweat the hygiene - but bring some Purell with you. Just in case.
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