the Sudan. Rugby players from the south-west and France's colonies give Gallic Grand Slam style to the Five Nations, and a French athlete won the gold medal in the 200 metres at the Atlanta Olympics after competing `just for fun'. A Frenchman holds the world record for staying under water without breathing. Two others set new standards for speed eating of snails 275 in 15 minutes and shucking oysters 2,064 in an hour. Their compatriots are both champion pet-owners (42 million household animals for 58 million people) and leading carnivores (just 1 per cent of the population is reckoned to be vegetarian). The town of Condom is living up to its name with the world's only contraceptive museum, while the Mediterranean port of Ste has the first museum devoted to the sardine. The Tour de France cycle race is watched each year by more on-the-spot spectators than any other annual sporting event on Earth, and is televised in 163 countries. When it comes to literature, the French count the largest number of Nobel Prizes; their authors include one who wrote a whole book without using the letter `e' and another who, suffering from `locked-in syndrome' after a severe stroke, dictated a memoir by blinking his eye as an amanuensis read through the alphabet. What other state can boast a President who flew to a summit meeting reading poetry and another who repaired to a garden on election eve with a slim volume of Japanese haikus? Which other people could have prompted a 235-page academic treatise on their gestures, from the Phallic Forearm Jerk to the Ambiguous Gut-Punch? And a best-selling book even claims that Christ was buried in France. France's armed forces, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute in London, are outdone only by the US and China in `martial potency'. Its people feel that they belong to a thoroughly modern, powerful nation. Their Post Office set up the first on-line data network available to households...
