THE French love a good riot, we like a good moan. Sadly, despite us winning WW2 and a football match in 1966, France is just better at some stuff, whether it’s pastries or perfume.
Rioting
If Brits could be arsed to riot, we’d be chanting ‘What do we want?’ ‘Shitter public services and lower wages!’. When the French are angry, they’re properly angry, and they certainly know how to trash large buildings. Although in fairness they had lots of practice in 1789.
Pastries
Ask for ‘chocolate bread’ in the UK, and you’ll get Nutella on Hovis. In France ‘pain au chocolat’ is a delectable treat. Then you’ve got mille-feuilles, croissants, eclairs… the list goes on. What’s our response? A plain bun with white icing. Bloody frogs with their pretentious food that’s in some way appealing.
Fashion
There’s a reason Emily Blunt is so desperate to go to Paris in The Devil Wears Prada, and it isn’t the frogs’ legs. The French have ‘haute couture’, which already sounds better than ‘high sewing’. A British journey into high fashion means getting some new Adidas trackie bottoms from Sports Direct.
Using the letter Z
The French make good use of ‘z’, with ‘voulez-vous’, ‘parlez-vous’, and ‘rendezvous’, to name but a few words and phrases. In Britain we use it for ‘Z-list celebrities’. The French have a rich, poetic language, we’ve got Joey Essex.
Perfume adverts
These are all unspeakable toss, but the French do them better, and even Kate Moss reclining seductively on a silk sheet can’t outdo a husky French voiceover. In a French accent, ‘eau de toilette’ sounds sensuous and sultry. In an English accent, it sounds like ‘toilet water’, which is a different thing unless you’ve got some unpleasant grooming habits.
Electing politicians
In the past decade, France has twice rejected the far-right candidate in favour of a substantially less awful centrist. In England we can’t get enough right-wing nationalist conmen whose only policies are ‘Britain’s full mate’ and some corruption. That’s not to say Macron’s doing a great job – the section entitled ‘Rioting’ is a bit of a clue to that.
