Why we are wrong to put French women on a pedestal

CATHERINE Deneuve’s plea that men be allowed ‘the freedom to bother, indispensable to sexual freedom’ may anger the MeToo protagonists, but there are grounds for welcoming her petition.

For one the intervention of Ms Deneuve, pictured, punctures the myth of the natural supremacy of French women, their exalted femininity that gives them the edge in all things from fashion and parenting to sex and ageing.

Like the famous picture of the Goddess of Liberty brandishing the French tricolour as she leads the people over the barricades, the modern Frenchwoman bears the elusive gold standard of female behaviour against which the rest of us poor peasants are found wanting.

No one can wear a scarf or tie the belt of her trench coat quite as elegantly as a French woman or pull off a Breton top with her élan.

When women all over the world let themselves go to pot in middle age, a French woman remains chic and radiates a seductive aura. Her children sit placidly in restaurants, and polish off their gourmet food. One raised eyebrow from Maman is enough to prevent a tantrum.

It’s enough to make you barf into your boeuf.

But Ms Deneuve’s defence of men’s rights to be sex pests shows her as someone more desperate for male approval in a sex-saturated culture than a feminist heroine.

Perhaps it’s neither natural selfconfidence nor strict discipline that explains why French women don’t get fat and have babies who sleep through the night. Maybe it’s just a desire to please men.