The French don’t let themselves go like British women
MurIel DeMarcuS, 43, grew up in the south of france, but moved to the uK for work 13 years ago. She lives in West london with her 44-year-old husband, a business manager, and two daughters, 16-year-old agie and 11-year-old audrey. When I’m back in France, in Paris or my native Provence, I feel like a normal woman in her 40s — an engineer by training and the mother of two daughters. But here in London, where I have lived for more than a decade, I feel like a living, breathing goddess. Why? At first it baffled me. Then I realised that as a Frenchwoman my standards are higher and my discipline stricter. I am not allowed to let myself go to the same extent British women so often do.
It’s a difficult truth to confront, but French women living in the UK do benefit from the comparison.
It is all an attitude of mind. I would no more wear a pair of tracksuit bottoms, for example, than I would eat a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps as a mid-morning snack (Frenchwomen do not snack).
I’d rather sleep in the spare room than subject my husband (or myself) to an M&S nightie. I can no more bring myself to buy British underwear, which seems to come in only two kinds — granny-ish or slutty-ish — than I can buy an industrially produced white-sliced loaf of British bread.
Instead I buy Parisian undies
from Princesse Tam Tam (princessetamtam.co.uk). In baking and in lingerie, the French have infinitely more sophisticated taste.
In Paris I feel fat. In London I feel skinny. It helps that we are not so politically correct. When we go to the doctor in France, they put us on the scales, and if we weigh too much, they are not afraid to tell us.
If you have just had a baby, they will cut you some slack and give you a few weeks to lose it — but not for much longer than that. In France, all women are given a state-funded course of post-birth physiotherapy, to repair the strength of crucial muscles and — importantly — to reclaim a flat tummy.
A friend of mine, two stone overweight a year after having a baby, was told by her doctor she looked ‘like a cow’. It was harsh, but it worked and she lost the extra rolls of fat.
This pressure to look and act in a feminine way is not always a blessing. If a Frenchwoman goes to work without make-up on, or wearing a pair of casual trousers rather than a formal skirt, people will comment. ‘What’s wrong with you today? Why are you letting yourself go?’
If you haven’t brushed your hair, colleagues are quite likely to gossip behind your back and wonder whether you’re depressed, since you look so sloppy. You are expected to look like a woman, but it is also quite subtle. Skirts should not be too short, or you will be accused of trying to dress like a teenager.
But that’s how we are brought up — with a sense of restraint and pride in all things.
And the British are undoubtedly less restrained than the French when it comes to one subject in particular: sex. Or at least talking about it.
British women talk about sex in one of two ways — either to lament the lack of it from overworked husbands or to wearily confess they’d rather get stuck into a good book.
But we French don’t talk like this. We would rather invest our time and energy into the marital bed. The less you talk, the more you do.
The subtler you are, the sexier. (This also applies to French underwear — always matching, always beautiful, as opposed to the British version, which looks as though it would go up in flames if you struck a match in the bedroom.)
Meanwhile, it’s assumed our husbands are all having affairs. Whenever anyone asks me if this is true, I smile enigmatically and shrug as though, yes, it might be. But of course it’s not. We keep them far too busy for other women.
It’s about self-control, not denial. When I have a breakfast meeting, I drink a coffee; here, everyone seems to wolf down pastries — even bacon sandwiches! Frenchwomen take the time for a proper meal at lunch — eating at the desk is frowned upon — but they will have fresh things, nothing processed.
The other day I saw some teenage girls buying chips for their lunch — and that was it. Never, ever, would a French girl do this.
Neither do we worry about relations between men and women at work. French women tend to feel flattered, not suspicious, when a man pays them a compliment.
If her boss says she looks good or comments on her new shoes, she will very likely take it in good faith and thank him.
Of course, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed — and it’s true that France is only now acknowledging the reality of sexual harassment at work — but on the whole men and women are more relaxed than antagonistic in each other’s presence in the office.
While the Brits might think the way a woman is supposed to look and act at work sounds very prescriptive, French women don’t see it that way.
They are confident in themselves, and as women. They are good at fighting their corner and know that nothing can hold them back.
As an engineer, I’ve been in meetings in London where the men can’t quite believe that I am telling them how to fix technical issues or build whole new systems.
I never know whether the strange looks I get are because I’m a woman or because I’m French. Alas, it is probably both.
Other areas of life in France are more formal too. British schools are a walk in the park compared with French ones. When my daughters were at primary school, I was shocked to see sometimes their misspelt words weren’t corrected in their exercise books.
Incorrect answers in maths were marked ‘good effort’ rather than ‘wrong’. It’s all very well telling children they’re making a good effort, but if you don’t correct their mistakes, such platitudes are meaningless, if not harmful.
Schools are certainly more creative here, but often at the expense of the basics. It is all about writing stories and ‘show and tell’.
I’ve never heard of ‘show and tell’ in a French school. In France, children must know their times tables at the age of seven — and a ‘good effort’ will not do.
And yet, paradoxically, French women are not so competitive in their parenting as they are here.
All these bake sales and playdates and PTA meetings and wildly expensive birthday parties . . . I found them utterly perplexing when I first encountered them.
In France, mothers drop their children off at 8.30am and pick them up at 4.30pm, and have very little to do with the school, or the other mothers, in-between or afterwards. Birthdays are a few friends at home with a cake.
And yet, having said all this, I do love London and the Brits.
Women are more collaborative here. When there is a crisis with childcare, the playground mums rally around in ways that are much less likely to happen in Paris.
And my children are very happy here — I’ve always loved the English phrase, ‘happy as a clam’. Despite the lower standards, I have no desire to go back to France.
After all, why would a woman want to be a mere mortal in Paris, when at the other end of the Eurostar she is regarded as divine? n Muriel’s blog is at frenchyummymummy.com