Freedom-loving libertines? Our idea of the French needs a rethink

Telegraph

2 days ago

The signals coming out of France are confusing. They always have been. If you're travelling to France this year, you might like to know where they're at right now, for people quite often understand France the wrong way round. That's why it fascinates.
Over the weekend, you may have noticed mobs of yobs attempting to wreck Paris, and various provincial spots, in celebration of a football victory. It's hardly the stuff of city-break dreams. That's soccer for you, I will say. That's France for you, you might say. And you would be sort of right. There's a thick seam of airhead destruction and looting running through French history, via the 1789 revolution to the present day. Anarchy is what the French do.
But it's only one thing they do. Visitors often underestimate the variety of French behaviour. Alongside the lawlessness, France also boasts an urge to discipline and a tendency toward bossy censoriousness. They're probably flipsides of the same coin. Simultaneous with the torching of cars and looting of flat-screen TVs came, for instance, the banning of smoking in pretty much all outdoor public spaces – including the beaches which sunseekers frequent.
We're also seeing an overdue kick back against France's famous libertinism. And, heaven knows, France buckled down to Covid restrictions quite as obediently – sheepishly, perhaps – as any other nation.
The public smoking ban first. 'The freedom to smoke must end where the freedom of children to breathe fresh air begins,' said health minister Catherine Vautrin. So, smoking visitors please be aware, you may not light up in a park, on a beach, at a bus stop or sporting venue, or anywhere near a school. Anywhere, in short, where there might be youngsters (except bar and restaurant terraces). If you do and are caught, you're £113 down. (Though catching smokers on, say, the eight-mile beach at Sète in Languedoc will present a challenge.)
I'd say this smoking clamp-down is pretty crazy. The health threats from smoke to kids on a beach seem likely to be minimal – there's an awful lot of fresh air available out there – and no more harmful than, say, the doughnuts sold on all French beaches by strolling sellers.
Tobacco sales are, anyway, tumbling – down 11 per cent in 2024. If 25 per cent of French adults still smoke (12 per cent in the UK), that's down from 30 per cent a decade ago. And – here's a thing – these fewer people are, due to price rises (to £10.50 a pack), paying more than when there were more of them – £16.5 billion – a few years back.
Of that sum, incidentally, between 75 and 80 per cent goes to the state in taxes. So, two things: the aim of stubbing out French smoking entirely by 2032 might be realised, or nearly, without annoying adults on beaches and in parks. Second, if it is realised, France is going to have to find an awful lot of cash somewhere else. Another round of tourist taxes, perhaps?
Anyway, I've had no say in the matter, the ban is on from July 1 and France has shown that, contrary to image, it can be as high-handed as any other democracy. I think you should know that. It will help you on the French roads this summer, when you're pulled over by a clump of police officers. Be co-operative, even obsequious.
France is also, now, sharp on licentiousness. You know the image: France, notably Paris, as a mix of exotic, sophisticated and raunchy. The Crazy Horse, Story Of O, the Can-Can, presidential philandering (Jacques Chirac was, apparently, 'Mr Three Minutes, Shower Included'), adultery as standard, and all the rest. The French government, it was said, used high-class brothels for entertaining foreign dignitaries, noting the appointments down on the official schedule as 'visits to the president of the Senate'.
Then again, the whole of France rarely matched the image. The weight of the Catholic church – and of the parish pump – saw to that. The reputation came from the elite – intellectuals, upper classes, monarchs – who considered they had dispensation. Such tolerance extended to the upper echelons was aided by privacy laws and a craven press – which failed to mention, for instance, that President Mitterrand had not only mistresses but an entire parallel family lodged at public expense.
This 20th-century libertinism took a first dive when Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave it a terrible name. Subsequently, #MeToo-ism has prospered as it's become clear that the ooh-la-la attitude has created an atmosphere conducive to appalling behaviour, and the worst of crimes.
Simply put, we underestimate the variety of French culture. Being told to wear masks and stay inside during Covid wasn't contrary to their traditions. It was mainstream. High-handedness was rooted in the absolute French monarchy, enhanced by a despotic revolution, and remains in place. The Liberté – about which we hear so much – is liberty until some technocrat from Paris tells you it's not. No post-war British political leader would have got away with de Gaulle's haughtiness. Or Macron's, for that matter.
France is, in short, not as French as you think. Of course, some of the images mirror some truth. The French are certainly less frenzied about sex and usually more elegant of deportment. But other elements of the image need adjustment.
Take drinking. Famously, the average Frenchman passes the afternoon lying under a hedge, beret over the eyes, empty bottle in the nearby ditch. This picture needs modification. The French have reduced their drinking by much more than half since the 1960s, largely by cutting out spirits and the more dreadful wines. The hedge-dwelling fellows have gone. Per capita booze consumption is now almost identical to Britain's. OK, this is not a terrific point of reference – not compared with North Korea or the average nunnery – but it's an improvement.
Food, too – a key concern for holidaymakers. Discussion of French food used to focus entirely on pleasure. There was an assumed scale of sensual seriousness against which diners judged dishes. There still is, but grafted on now are requirements for 'wellness' and for the 'saving' of the planet. Chefs are increasingly following their US and British colleagues in droning on about the naturalness of all their organic ingredients sourced from family producers no more than 30 miles away.
Contrary to reputation, the French have also got the hang of hygiene. Though a few cafés and bars retain WCs like primeval swamps, most don't. And one may now usually tackle real public conveniences – in railway or service stations, museums and airports – without pulling on waders. You can also drink the water from the tap without 1950s-style results.
Reputation also portrays the French as lunatic drivers. Again, I'm not sure. I last felt really threatened by traffic not in France but when driving in Lancashire. Hesitancy about lanes and turn-offs drove local tin-can warriors crackers. They hooted, they drove to within millimetres of the hire car and, on passing, shouted what I gathered weren't greetings. I've not experienced anything similar in France for ages. Granted, French road deaths are slightly more than twice those in Britain – 3,432 against 1,633 in 2024 – but that French figure is down from a 1972 high of more than 18,000.
I could go on. I usually do. The key thing is that if, this summer, you're travelling to France under the impression that it is a buffet of delights with no moral restrictions, you'll be disappointed. Or reassured, depending. That's partly because bossiness is built in and partly because France truly isn't as free and easy, insouciant and disgusting as everybody imagines.