Angleterre, je t’aime

The French ego has taken a beating this summer. In July Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, published Témoignage (Testimony) in which he told his countrymen to buck up, work harder and be more like the Brits. The response to Sarkozy’s call to arms was a resounding “Bof”. But thanks to some juicy revelations about the minister’s private life, the book has been at the top of the non-fiction bestseller list for weeks, permeating the culture with its doubting voice and making for plenty of uncomfortable debate about the national character.

This was only the beginning for France’s confidence crisis. Also that month Marc Levy, the country’s bestselling novelist, published Mes Amis Mes Amours, the story of two divorced Parisian men who move to the UK to raise their children. The plot was really just a framing device for Levy’s real purpose: a love letter to his adopted home of London.

In the book (which will be published in English next year) the author waxes poetic on the joys of living in Britain. He writes of superior baguettes (made by English hands with English flour), our lovely climate (“You never get a completely grey day like in Paris”), the charming locals (“Shop assistants that actually smile at you!”), a more varied intellectual life and a capital city more conducive to love than a moonlit stroll by the Seine. London, concludes Levy, is everything Paris was 40 years ago.

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