How can I be more "French"?

Only feed your children pasta with butter accompanied by jambon. If you are health conscious, this will be preceded by a bowl of lettuce served by itself.

Talk at great length to everyone, including complete strangers, about your digestion. Your liver is a source of permanent interest

Forget to eat, but never forget to smoke and drink 10 black coffees per day.

As a rare treat, allow yourself one (and only one) small square of dark chocolate. Any more would be an indulgence that would lead to obesity.

Obesity is being bigger than a 38.

Visit your doctor at the first sign of a cold, and always take anti-depressants.

If you are getting on in years, keep an oilcloth on your dining table at all times and sit there all day, especially if someone calls to see you - the sofa is for the cat.

My mum lived in Paris for many years, working in schools.

I remember complaining of constipation as an older child when we were there. She suggested prunes. When I pulled a face she told me about bum bullets. Then made me a compote with prunes in.

She is very tall and has distinctive red hair. French people would have long involved debates with her insisting she must be Scottish (she's half Irish) - unless we were in Brittany where she fits right in.

www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?frenchkisses

beware of faux pas
you can tell where someone is from from how many times they kiss you on the cheek. So choose wisely!
and from the number on their car licence plate, although, sadly, this is disappearing fast ( cue " espece de 75!" when casual parisian driving is witnessed elsewhere in the country )

Drive with your left arm hanging out of the window (from upthread)

Works best on a left hand drive car

French packed lunch: small starter of mixed seasonal crudités followed by the leftover of Papa and Maman's dinner from the previous evening to be reheated in the school microwave. A small plain yoghurt/fromage blanc. Fruit (pre-prepped).

Four courses. No wine

I actually live in France. Spend not less than ?500 a month on products that give you a flat stomach (they're posh laxatives), creams you rub into your bottom before you go to sleep and they slim you overnight (yeah, right) and sprays to clean your ears. Never ever do your nails (fingers or toes) yourself. If you are pregnant massage your perineum (yes, really) every day. There are special nurses to show you how to do it. My friend's husband came home and caught her at it once. Drink wine every day, but just one glass. But whisky drunk at home apparently doesn't count as alcohol. You have to love Serge Gainsbourg. Don't ask why. You just have to. I think it's in the Constitution. Have "aperos" at home for which you lay on lavish displays of snack food, none of which anybody eats. When you've given birth don't breastfeed, because you want to keep them nice for your husband.

TBF the bottom bullets is European, rather than French. My UK friend had her DCs in Italy, lived there for 5 years and I know she's going to come back from her holidays with kilos of salt (Italian salt is 'just better'), Sicilian oregano (all good) and a bag full of suppositories. I never ask for a paracetomol when I'm in her house, put it that way!

Bof!

My son will only take suppositories (bottom bullets as we call them). He refuses all oral medication. I thought he was being awkward, turns out he was simply being a bit French. I plan to stock up when I'm in Evian next month.

He's also partial to a compote, which we buy in bulk when we go over to visit grandpa.

Maman et al please share what is in a 'French' packed lunch. I think I want my children to have those (private school, status anxiety etc.)

Surely you don't send them off with a baguette, a round of brie and a bottle of merlot?

I agree, cote. Waxing it all off is the norm.

"Stop shaving your legs and armpits?"

Not around these parts. I have never seen a single body hair on a French woman. I suspect that they wax their arms as well as legs. Waxing of the entire fanjo is also the norm.

The only (few) times I have ever seen underarm hair around here in the past 15 years has been on English women, actually.

Teach your DC to call you "maman".

Watch this for how to fake French:

I suppose Maman that once I reached my 60s I didn't reckon I'd be flirted with . You're right it's good for my self esteem but the butcher is a red faced alky!

Like a lot of older and younger frenchmen !!

For recipes, download the app called "marmiton", it's in French but it is full of recipes submitted by anyone who wants, users grade them and write very French comments on how they have changed everything to a less fatty alternative. I love it, and I am actually French so it must be worth trying!!!

Kiss everyone by way of greeting, including absolute strangers at least 3 times on the cheek. Alternate with four kisses*.

• NB: Make sure its at least 6 or 7 when its someone english or german you are greeting just to make them REALLY uncomfortable.

My doctor told me that liquid paracetamol was better for children than suppositories. I can't make sense of it, my DD won't ingest anything when she's ill so I get my mum to send me the 'bottom torpedoes' as English DH calls them.

You're not French until you regularly eat compotes for dessert. And dry sausage (saucisson sec).

I'm devastated that my DD has gone to the dark side and wants English pack lunch. Her favourite lunch is sandwiches

Duchess, I tend to do the same. And the dcs also have a 'french' version of a pack lunch.
Result: other children are wondering what on earth they are eating. Teachers are jealous....

ppeatfruit lol
You do realise that in most of the cases, it's just innocent flirting don't you?
I like a bit of flirting. It does a lot of good for yourself esteem!!

Medicines given to children by weight rather than age. That makes so much sense to me.

Stop shaving your legs and armpits?

I just love Brighton and don't find it a dirty place: maybe your husband's cousin had been there during the Pride Festival or the Fringe?

It's a good few years ago now and I'm not sure exactly when they went.
Of course, it could have been that they were determined to find fault...
Whenever my in laws visited us in the UK (and it wasn't often), they spent most of their time organising flights, etc. so they could leave earlier than originally planned.

I don't think that they liked it much.

Oh and along with tartiflette another coronary maker is aligote.!

what's wrong with suppositories?
they are far more efficient and quick acting than anything else...
but I stopped administering them to my first DS after realising it shocked my english partner so much....

Blimey FredaMayor I'm normal looking (not fat) with natural blonde hair (and getting on a bit) but since living here i've been letched over (openly in front of dh) by a fair number of younger frenchmen. The worst is 'our' butcher who asked me " coud you geeev mee sum lessons in eengleesh plees"

I can't go to his shop on my own now it's too embarrassing .

Bonsoir does that mean I have to wear a bra then?

Gauloise, breton tops navy/black ankle grazers, pumps, red lipstick.