A Hard Sell? Book Tells Americans How to Be French

CHICAGO (Reuters) - It may be as ill-timed as opening a new storefront business in downtown Baghdad -- a book telling Americans how they too can be like the French. But its principal author, chef Robert Arbor, says his "Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living" is "beyond politics" and will quench a thirst deeper than the current tempest in a demitasse.

So does publisher Simon & Schuster, which says the timing may work in the book's favor -- offering closet Francophiles in the United States a guide to pursuing the politically incorrect in the privacy of their homes without having to sneak out to a French restaurant, even as U.S.-French ties are iced by disagreements over the Iraq war.

Arbor, who owns nine New York and Boston restaurants, including seven Le Gamin Cafes, says his book of pictures, recipes and reminiscences about living a good life every day will sell because French culture has survived worse, including wars and revolutions.

"One thing that always stayed around was the way of life, taking time and enjoying moments that are important in the day," the Fontainebleau native said in an interview.

I always get a little irritated when people say "the French," as if they were one amorphous mass. True, Chirac is a worm, and most French politicians aren't any better (not that our politicians are so great, either).

I spent some time in France and a close friend of mine is French, but I suspect many posters who are bashing all the French are just mindlessly parroting the stereotypes they've heard. For as bad as France is in the world, Russia is far worse.

The stereotypes from my personal experience, so take them as you like...

Rude: Quite the opposite. French people are almost always very polite, even in the big cities. In fact, they are the politest people I've experienced in Europe. The Spanish are the rudest, by far.

Smelly: No, they are very clean. They wear clean clothes and shower regularly. In fact, I see many more dirty people in the US. Oh, yes, the women shave.

Anti-American: Some are, some aren't. I never personally noticed it in any way, but it shows up in polls. I did see a number of French people wearing shirts with American flags half a year ago. No, they weren't American tourists. I saw a lot of other signs that many French people like the US.

Anti-Christian: Many are, absolutely. They can be pretty intolerant in this way. Still, _some_ people are religious.

Arrogant: Many of them are convinced that the world revolves around France, yes. But they aren't so arrogant in other ways.

Snail-eaters: So what? I eat oysters, and they look pretty disgusting.

Cowards: They haven't exactly distinguished themselves since Napolean, and they were disgraceful in WW II. Still, at least they didn't plunge all of Europe and the US into the hell that Germany did. And I met one elderly, heroic French woman who worked against the Nazis in WW II. She had a superb, sunny personality, too.

Treacherous: There is some truth to this. I knew a CEO who dealt with corporations all around the world, and his worst dealings were with French companies. The scum really seem to rise to the top in France. There is an elitist attitude there that I noticed, and the elite are forgiven too many sins. The average French person I dealt with treated me honestly.

Lazy: That depends. The students are pushed very, very hard in school. American students would quickly crack under the pressure in a French school. Once they get a job, especially a government job, yes some can be lazy. The police are infuriatingly lazy! People in the private sector work harder. Sound familiar?

Sexually charged philanderers: Yes. According to some polls I've seen, Americans are just as bad, but the French don't try to hide their lust. In many ways, French men often don't treat women as well as they should. A lot of French women work and do all the housework, for instance.

France is a mixed bag. The people constantly elect idiots for leaders, and the French public certainly has some nutty ideas. There is no question that, as a country, Britain always displays a sense of honor vastly above that of France. Yet I can also say that my personal dealings with the average French person were nearly always positive. So don't slam all French people for their rulers. Americans elected Clinton and a Democratic Congress, remember!

Oh, yes, my French friend hates both wine and onions. So much for stereotypes.

I am almost 1/2 French. I have toured France, spent a lot of time in Paris. I found many of the people to be arrogant and rude. We got maced in the subway in 1980. The conductor was angry with one passenger, so he left his car, came into our car, and sprayed mace right into his face, point blank. We were standing right behind the man, we got maced, too. My asthma attack was deadly. Why was the conductor mad? An innocent, stupid man, held the door open for a couple of people who were running to get on the subway car - not knowing that you can't do this. The train was still stopped when he held the door open. If the train had taken off, or was moving that would have been different. We were going to go to the embassy and police and complain, but were told that no one would care, no one would do anything about it. Several hours later, after my lungs and eyes recovered, we were OK again.

That was the rudest thing that ever happened to us in France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Austria, Brazil, Canada, England, Mexico, or Switzerland, all put together!

There was a French foreign exchange student here, he lived with friends of ours, he rarely showered, and wore the same dirty shirt most of the time. Edna tried to get him to shower and put on a clean shirt when he left to go back home to France.

I will admit that when we were in the Bach House listening to organ music, in former East Germany, a group of French tourists came in late, and they smelled like heavy perfume, didn't smell dirty at all.

We were at an outdoor wine festival in Deidesheim Germany once and when the sun came out everyone took off their jackets, and the B.O. was overwhelming. None of them had showered, shaved, or used deoderant.

I think Europeans just don't shower daily like Americans do. Most of the women in the Western countries shave now. But we were at an outdoor festival in Leipzig Germany in 2000 and the women and girls dancing in the festival had not shaved their underarms or legs. And they were VERY hairy. I think it takes a while for ideas like shaving to come to a recently freed country. It used to be East Germany there. Those people were nice, except for my tour guide on a bus tour of the area. She was still angry at America and allies for bombing that town. She still resented Americans and she let it show.

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