of all, a woman. A beautiful woman.' The people of the country called the Hexagon bounded by the Channel, the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps and the Rhine feel they do not have to bother overmuch about what the rest of the world thinks of them; simply being French is enough. They have little time for multiculturalism foreigners and emigrants from other nations should count themselves lucky to be allowed inside the tent, and should conform to French ways and culture. After all, which other nation can boast such a baker's dozen of writers as Rabelais, Molire, Corneille, Racine, Stendhal, Flaubert, Balzac, Hugo, Zola, Baudelaire, Proust and Dumas pre and fils? Feydeau set the template for farce and, even if his creator originated from across the border in Belgium, Commissaire Maigret was quintessentially French. When it comes to painting, the list is equally impressive from Poussin and De la Tour through Corot and Czanne to the Impressionists and on to Matisse and Braque. Henri Cartier-Bresson may be the century's greatest photographer, and the whole world knows the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the horrors of Bluebeard, the adventure of Around the World in Eighty Days, the Cannes film festival and the Paris fashion shows. It is not only that France feels no concern about standing apart: the urge to be different is, in the words of the commentator Dominique Mosi, a fundamental part of national existence. As the novelist Julian Barnes puts it, the French embody `otherness'. We are almost perfect, declared a Tourism Minister, though she also urged her compatriots to be more welcoming to visitors since `even the most attractive girl needs a bit of make-up to seduce'. The French are conceited rather than vain, in a phrase used by the British politician, Roy Jenkins, about De Gaulle. Two centuries ago, Napolon hit a note for the nation to live up to: `My power depends on my glory, and my glories on the victories I h...
