8 Reasons Why I Love The French

Last weekend, Kim Kardashian was robbed — at gunpoint — in Paris.  What an unfortunate situation!

Here are 8 reasons why I love the French.

Food — The French do food the way the Russians do paranoid — it’s in their DNA, and they’re good at it.  They can detect the perfect onion at 10 kilometres and can toss a salad with their mind.  Their touch ripens fruit, and animals beg to be cooked in French kitchens.  In France, making kids eat their vegetables is a reward, not a punishment.  And you could run Texas mud through any French restaurant and come out the other side with a gourmet meal.

Women — French women are conspicuously sexy.  I suppose the men are, too, but from my side of the sexual equation, I don’t care.  And that’s the point: French women don’t care.  They’re totally comfortable with their sexuality, sensuality and all their other alities.  They don’t flirt; they don’t vamp; they don’t tease.  They just stand there and dare you to take them to bed.  Think of it this way: the French are the only nationality who has a kiss named after them.

Politics — French politics is played in that magical place where Downton Abbey meets Game of Thrones.  For example, the current Minister of Ecology is the ex-partner of the current President of the Republic. (They had 30 years and four children together, but thought marriage was too bourgeois.)  They became exes (just before an election where she ran for president) when she tossed him because he was having an affair with a journalist.  Since then, he become president, dumped the journalist and is currently having an affair with an actress.  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are a bedtime story in comparison.  And I haven’t even mentioned Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Madame Le Pen or her niece.

The French don’t have issues; they have wine — I suspect that the French are just as neurotic as the rest of us, but you’d never know it.  Their idea of therapy is “un verre de vin rouge” and if things get really rough, it’s “la bouteille, s’il vous plait.”

All the cool words we stole from them — savoir faire, esprit de corps, nouveau riche, menage a trois, forte, c’est la vie, bon vivant, de rigueur, beau geste, chic — and on and on and on.  These words are perfect and mean so much more than their translation.  That’s why we stole them.

Cartoons — French cartoonists are the last bastion of free thought on this planet.  They don’t give a donkey’s derriere about politically correct, and that’s the way it should be.  It’s called satire and French cartoonists practice it as a full contact sport.  They believe that if they don’t offend at least one person every day, they’re not doing their job.

Waiters — They’re not “servers” in France and don’t pretend to be.  Treat a French waiter properly and he/she will open up a whole world of delicious for you; piss them off, and you’re in for a long evening.  I was once in a restaurant in Paris and asked the waiter if I could have the steak medium.  He politely took the menu back and told me to go somewhere else.

Paris can’t be explained.