French Ex-pats in London

The French were already having a rough summer, with presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy advising them to get a clue in his new book Témoignage (Testimony).

But now comes Marc Levy with his bestselling novel

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.

What? A Frenchman in love with Britland? Certainly. As Levy tells Giles Hattersley, “England is so marvellous!”

The French are not amused. In a recent debate on French radio

It might be acceptable, they conceded, to live in London for some high-paying job, but the idea of crossing the Channel to improve on l’art de vivre was anathema.

So sit down in London at a café

on Bute Street, known affectionately among London’s large French population as Frog Alley. This evening, in the shadow of the Lycée Français, the bookshops and boulangeries are full of yummy mamans buying their children ice-creams and talking French.

Frog Alley? You mean the French ex-pats in Britland have a sense of humor? This is something I have to see.

Want more? Here is Levy again.

Paris is like a dead city with no progress while everything here [in London] has the buzz.

Or this, on French women. Too many of them adopt

the “Ce n’est pas possible” attitude as a life philosophy... that power can only come with saying ‘non’. They say it without thinking, all the time, every day, to everyone they meet. It’s like they think, “Lets start with ‘non’, have a think, then if we change our minds we can say ‘non’ to ‘non’.

Whereas British women, by all accounts...