Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

What French women want

They like men and expect great things of them

[Shutterstock/ITV]

Considering the subject of compatibility, experienced British expats in France maintain that a French man and an English woman might work, but rarely the other way around. Anecdotal evidence bears this out. The English chap, for example, who came to look at the septic tank has a long-term French partner who once broke his arm during a domestic dispute. This mildest, most liberal-minded of men lives alone in a mountain refuge whenever feasible. He also has a part-time job as a tour guide in the Far East.

I am currently transitioning to a woman for urgent medical reasons. Force of habit, however, leads me to consider the French women I meet every day in this Provençal village from the point of view of a man. To generalise from my daily encounters in the village, I would say that French women do seem to like men, expect great things of them, and are not fearful of the repellent. Which is a fantastic start by any standards. And so many of them are brimming with health and beauty. They are more beautiful, it seems to me now, than their most conspicuous counterparts during the era of my entirety.

If Christine was surprised by her fame among the expat English castrates she didn’t show it

But many also have a directness and sexual clairvoyance that is easily mistaken for ferocity. Even if I were fluent in their language and all my moving parts were in full working order, I’m not sure I’d want to tackle one. I’ve noticed, too, that the firm of Geordie builders who have been here for 20 years, and live mostly in the bars, never associate with the local French women in any meaningful sense. It is true that now and again one does hear of a sexual association implicating these Geordies, but it is always said to be in concert, and with the same woman, and celebrated in a routine or perhaps ritual spirit rather than as a loving or spontaneous intimacy.

For sheer gale-force-ten sexual power, however, I must mention Christine, a hardworking local waitress in her early thirties.

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