Whisper it! French women are très insecure underneath the pouting… as another book extols their style
- Caroline de Maigret, 44, is a former model with magnificent cheekbones
- She pouts from endless photos in her latest book Older, But Better, But Older
- Could it be that under all that pouting French women feel second best?
Sexier than us, far more chic and never, ever fat; they’re better mothers, cooks, lovers, and now we discover that they don’t even get older — they get better.
Oui, oui, the myth of the French woman has just grown even more intimidating.
According to the latest in a long line of books detailing how French women Do It Better, the femme fatale doesn’t even dim with age.
Author Caroline de Maigret, 44, is a former model with magnificent cheekbones and alluring cat eyes, who pouts from endless photos in her latest book Older, But Better, But Older, with cigarette dangling from perfect lips.
She charts changes brought by ageing with annoying insouciance: amused that some of her peers are refusing cosmetic surgery; irritated by the way young men don’t stutter when speaking to her as they used to.
Against these inconveniences, though, she relishes how once a woman hits 40, she can ‘love her butt’, freeze her eggs and tell her lover what she wants.
She shares tips, too. Every night, ‘even if inebriated’, we are to repeat such mantras as ‘no one should see your gums when you talk or laugh’; ‘wear a black bra under your white shirt’; and ‘your look should always have one thing left undone’.
Author Caroline de Maigret, 44, is a former model with magnificent cheekbones and alluring cat eyes, who pouts from endless photos in her latest book Older, But Better, But Older
She includes a helpful guide to French women: they may not always say hi or thank you (as if we didn’t know); they are shamelessly snobbish (never!) and always late (because they are so much more important than we are).
All of which is enough to give lesser mortals — anyone born outside of France — a serious inferiority complex.
Look at that role model par excellence, first lady of France Brigitte Macron, showing off her 66-year-old pins in leather leggings on official trips with her 42-year-old husband.
Or the actress Catherine Deneuve, gliding through her 70s like a yacht on the Med: sleek, gleaming and looking like a million dollars.
Anything we can do, it seems, French women can do better, from skinny jeans to hot flushes.
But dig a little deeper, and French women may have a thing or two to learn from their British counterparts.
As an objective foreigner (I’m an Italian who studied French history and has lived in Britain most of her life), I feel well-placed to compare the two.
Let’s start with the way French women look. I’m not talking about their immaculate appearance, but the way they look down on everything and everyone.
This proud, frosty contempt is as much the French woman’s signature look as a Chanel scarf, as I learned dating a French man in my 20s.
His men friends were fine, if dull. But the women . . . they called me ‘la petite Anglaise’ even though I was taller than them.
They were artfully bored by everything. I found them insufferable.
The actress Catherine Deneuve is gliding through her 70s like a yacht on the Med: sleek, gleaming and looking like a million dollars
The women of Britain, on the other hand, were brought up to show an interest in everything: looking bored is the height of bad manners.
British women are among the world’s best travelled, while the French stay at home (90 per cent travel only within France). When they do leave, they refuse to learn tourist phrases and leave stingy tips.
One London family I know are still reeling from the ‘French is best’ mentality after hosting an exchange student last year.
The 17-year-old girl arrived with a suitcase stuffed with food and the contents of half a pharmacy — because she could not eat ze English food or take ze English medicine.
Going shopping with a French woman in even the best British department stores is mortifying. No matter what item she is offered, her reaction is always the same: ‘Quelle horreur!’
Women across the Channel have a certain je ne sais quoi. But study them carefully and you’ll realise that’s because they all wear a uniform: those perfectly draped scarves, creased trousers and killer heels are playing it safe.
Look at that role model par excellence, first lady of France Brigitte Macron, showing off her 66-year-old pins in leather leggings on official trips with her 42-year-old husband
My friend Charlotte, who has been dating a French man for years, quotes him as saying: ‘English women are fun. French women are neurotic.’
When an English friend told his Parisian wife the origins of the quote ‘Keep calm and carry on’, she looked shocked. ‘But the war was a tragedy!’ she hyperventilated, ‘How could you ask people to be calm?’
Not all French women are drama queens, but this is the nation that takes more tranquillisers and antidepressants than any other.
Here is something more intriguing: the list of icons Caroline de Maigret includes in her book stretches from Keith Richards to Jane Birkin. All of them Anglo Saxons.
Which raises an astonishing theory: could it be that under all that pouting and posing French women feel — mon dieu! — terribly second-best?
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