Why France can’t save us

From an early age, my grandparents tried to save me the pitfalls of a lower middle class English existence by initiating me into the joie de vivre of France. Across the channel I would be ferried, left to the continental sophistication in a Calais bistro some 20 minutes from the ferry terminal. There I would watch my grandfather scoff a bowl of moules and cheap rose and flirt with the waitress. My grandma would beam upon the scene. This was the first of many escapades to the continent, a saving grace for the mediocrity and dullness that stalks the English petit bourgeoisie. 

We might like to joke about invading our oldest enemy et cetera, but culturally we revere and adore the French. But I still don’t understand the appeal. In my Erasmus year abroad, I sat in bilingual groups submerged in the slightly irritating subtext that everything French was slightly better.