It’s a cold January night and I’m sitting at my kitchen counter drinking jasmine tea and scarfing down a chocolate bar for my dinner (ah, the joys of living alone; I can eat what I want, when I want.) I’m scarfing because I’m North American. I presume that French women do not scarf, they delicately nibble. At least that’s what Mireille Guiliano is telling us. And they will nibble only one square, whereas I’ll go the whole nine yards on this delicious Lindt Croquant Caramel bar. mmmmmm…

Author Event 
Thursday 13 March 2014
Signing 6-7pm
Presentation 7-8pm 

W.H. Smith bookstore in Paris (rue de Rivoli, metro Concorde.)

Mireille Guiliano, author of FRENCH WOMEN DON’T GET FAT, will present and sign her new book FRENCH WOMEN DON’T GET FACELIFTS.

I’m curious to meet this woman. I’ll go to her book signing and I’ll ask her, “Madame Guiliano, there’s no mention in your book that 46% of French women between the ages of 20-25 smoke cigarettes, and this number is increasing. The primary – and self-confessed – reason for their smoking habit is to not gain weight. Don’t you agree that this might be one legitimate reason why FRENCH WOMEN DON’T GET FAT?”

Any foreigner coming to France will notice the inordinately high number of smokers here; all ages, both genders. The number of times I’ve been stuck behind puffing pedestrians on a narrow sidewalk is once too many. Unable to walk around them (because the sidewalks are too damn narrow), I’ve had to actually step out into the street to bypass them and shun their smoke. Happens all the time.

How can Ms. Guiliano seriously write a book entitled FRENCH WOMEN DON’T GET FACELIFTS? Every season there’s yet another program on TV about French men and women flocking to Morocco and Tunisia for sun, sea and surgery.  The price for cosmetic surgery there is one-third of what it costs in Europe and business is booming.

Ms. Guiliano writes that Catherine Deneuve “no longer wears stilettos or sharp red lipstick, and her clothes have changed too, and so has her hair.”  Yes, and so has her face!

And what happened to the once-lovely Emmanuelle Beart?

French actress Emmanuelle Béart flaunted her surgically enhanced glossy pout for over a decade, until things changed and turned into a nightmare.

In closing, here are someone’s eloquent words on the topic of Mireille Guiliano –

She has become a very wealthy woman by peddling a whole series of these dubious, aspirational books, which promote the myth of the ultra-chic, ultra-slim French woman, and the general superiority of all-things-Gallic. The members’ forum of her French Women Don’t Get Fat website is very revealing. It’s peopled by a brigade of (largely) North American women who imagine that all their emotional problems will be solved if only they can save up for the longed-for trip to Paris!! It’s all rather pathetic, and shame on Ms Guiliano for exploiting this.

Y’know what?  I’m not even interested in looking at her French Women Don’t Get Fat website.  

Now, where’s the rest of that Croquant Caramel chocolate bar?