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Letter From Paris
The Great Seducers
In France their game is about life, not sex.
(Page 2 of 2)
President Nicolas Sarkozy is an exception to the rule. Indeed, the most likely answer to the frequent question, “Why don’t the French like him?” is that he was slow in mastering the art of appearing seductive. It didn’t help that this second wife, Cécilia, dumped him weeks after he took office, leaving Sarkozy, a teetotalling workaholic who’s not much fun anyway, looking lonely and forlorn.
Even the woman who followed his presidential campaign for a year before the 2007 election and then wrote a book about it, Yasmina Reza, was surprised that he hadn’t tried anything. “It’s almost insulting to spend an entire year with a man,” she later said, “without him trying to seduce you.” But things have improved since he wooed and married Carla Bruni, pop singer, former model, and indisputable prize catch for any seducer. She loyally fosters his new image with comments like, “His physique, his charm, his intelligence seduced me.”
It may well be that Voltaire, that archetypal Frenchman, was right when he wrote, “It is not enough to conquer, one must also seduce.” But to those of us woefully lacking in the seductive arts, it will always seem that there is something sneaky, deceptive, manipulative — in a word, phony — about seduction. It is, after all, an insecure way of getting around people rather than being upfront.
Even Sciolino, who admires French seductiveprowess, admits it has its drawbacks. “Seduction is the best that France has to offer,” she concludes. “When it works, it’s magic.…But it can also entail inefficiency, fragility, ambiguity, and a process that at any time can end badly. When the game comes up against the cold, hard wall of reality, when it reveals itself, seduction fails.”
Q.E.D. There couldn’t be a better argument for the superiority of liquor.
About the Author
Joseph A. Harriss is The American Spectator’s Paris correspondent. His latest book, An American Spectator in Paris, was released this fall.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (44) | Leave a comment
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Drudge Ette Obama| 10.19.11 @ 6:27AM
So where does Ron Paul fit in this seduction thing?
The Big E| 10.19.11 @ 12:19PM
I don't know, but he seems to have seduced Clint.
Seek| 10.19.11 @ 12:49PM
Voila!
Clint| 10.19.11 @ 3:10PM
More Queer Talk, From Two Israel Firster GayBoys.
videos | 2.18.12 @ 9:48PM
Choose this day whom YOU will serve, and leave me out of your phony arguments.
mafya | 4.28.12 @ 1:06AM
really! great.
scythe| 10.19.11 @ 7:03AM
It all sounds just a little creepy and oily for my taste. But then again, being an American, I appreciate the full frontal assault. Which is why we saved France from the Nazis while they were too busy trying to seduce their way to freedom?
P.Smith| 10.19.11 @ 7:18AM
And all this time I just thought Dominique Strauss-Kahn was just a dirty old pervert.
Anthony| 10.19.11 @ 10:38AM
Ahh, the French may have Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but we have Bill Clinton!!! Astroturf and panatellas, what else could a woman ask for???
gearjammewr| 10.19.11 @ 8:00AM
If seduction does not lead to bedroom and babies, then it is goodbye France.
Seek| 10.19.11 @ 12:51PM
France has enough of both. What it DOES have way too much of are Muslims and Africans. Viva La France -- and LePen!
business | 2.18.12 @ 9:52PM
Not that he has a chance for the nomination.
Maxwell| 10.19.11 @ 8:15AM
I guess all of this leaves me out, I prefer the smell of 90 weight Harley oil or the sight, sound, smell of a Ducati after a hard run.
Dick Nome| 10.19.11 @ 8:39AM
I don't give a rat's rear end babout France or what the populace does there. When it becomes Frogistan and the capital is Parisibad, there will be no Frenchmen to worry about anyway. France is a center of socialism, depravity and arrogance.
bebek | 2.18.12 @ 9:53PM
I didn't leave the Republican Party, it left me!
Matthew Quigley| 10.19.11 @ 9:10AM
More proof that France is the most worthless society on this planet, except for the muslimes...oh, wait...
Seek| 10.19.11 @ 12:53PM
What a summation. Perhaps, as a seducer, you have not succeeded where the French have. Is this about envy?
Anthony| 10.19.11 @ 9:13AM
It's fitting that the men of France limit their conquering to the bedroom, even there, their hands are usually the first things to go up.
Stuart Koehl| 10.19.11 @ 9:31AM
I always knew there was less to the French than met the eye. However, such superficiality lacks what the English call "bottom", which is why nobody pays much attention to the French philosophes anymore.
emilio lizardo, PhD| 10.19.11 @ 10:06AM
all that money for fragrance,not a sou for bath soap
Stuart Koehl| 10.19.11 @ 7:48PM
Whatever happened to Buckaroo Bonzai, by the way?
JimH| 10.19.11 @ 11:26AM
It has been said: the French f— with their
mouths and fight with their feet
Franco| 10.19.11 @ 12:32PM
So what? So did ("The Emperor has devised a new way to make war; he makes us use our legs instead of our muskets", from the 1805 campaign) Napoleon!
Nah, seriously, I just get toasted and grab myself in front of a beoootiful lady, slurring words all the way and twitching until I vomit all over myself. It even works, sometimes!
Le Cracquere| 10.19.11 @ 12:35PM
After reading this, I want to take a shower: that's one more difference between me and les français to heave onto the pile.
sikiş | 2.2.12 @ 3:58PM
reading your blogs and I am regular visitor to this site
TrueBlue| 10.19.11 @ 1:03PM
It's the only skill the French have since they can't fight and have no ideas that actually work. The only way they can do anything is to convince other people how fantastic they are because they can never show actual results. Even when they are telling the truth, who really wants to sit through a half hour monologue when two sentences will do?
I'd rather be brash, rude, and RIGHT than have to lie to get things done. Besides, lying is a sin.
Seek| 10.19.11 @ 2:55PM
Consider the following words in the English vocabulary: general, colonel, major, captain, lieutenant, sergeant, corporal, private, fortress, garrison, guard, battalion, platoon, regiment, legion, bombardier, assault, charge, corps. What do these military words have in common? Simple: All are derived from French! That so much of our military vocubulary comes from the French language implies that the French people know how to fight -- and have had centuries of practice.
Anthony| 10.19.11 @ 3:53PM
I think the French were asked to come up with a lexicon of military terminology, seeing that they had nothing better to do while observing.
Conservative Bob| 10.19.11 @ 4:42PM
One wonders why since as you say they have had so much practice is has been so long since their last victory.
Foxfier | 10.20.11 @ 5:02PM
KNEW how to fight.
Don't confuse history with current reality.
Foxfier | 10.20.11 @ 5:03PM
May be related to that time when they went and slaughtered everyone who was important, and thus a threat to the revolutionaries....
Dave Williams| 10.19.11 @ 2:09PM
"For sale: French army rifles. Never fired, dropped only once."
amatör seks | 10.19.11 @ 7:29PM
wow sa lähed sa teed tagasi, olen ma olen
al bundhii| 10.20.11 @ 12:28AM
Could Mr. Harriss let us know who are some of these fine old American familes who pass their wisdom to their children. They don't seem to be sitting wise in the seats of government or finance these days. And the French Can Fight; the poileux at Verdun proved that. My favorite French singer is Frehel--old and fat and ugly and drug-addled, but what a singer.
POST American| 10.20.11 @ 3:36AM
--------And speaking of FRANCE
and contemplating the latest power
grabs of the ROT-child/Rockefeller
EUGENICS and USURY mongering
'EEL-eat'---------
those wanting a blast from the past
will google up that decades ago incident
in Paris where some EUGENIST run
blood clinic deliberately distributed
HIV tainted blood infecting tens of
thousands.
AFTER they were seized from a well-deserved
lynching -----they were tried and put away
---for LIFE.
------------------------------AHHHHHHHHH
porno | 12.20.11 @ 12:30AM
yeah nice post man
skeptic| 10.22.11 @ 9:51AM
So let me get this right, you got Giscard d'Estaing(with a first name of Valerie -- explains a lot), primary author of the Eurpean Union Constitution, fantasizing himself seducing Diana Princess of Wales in a book he authors AFTER being President of France. After being old, gray, wrinkled, washed-up and banished to senility row for politicians.
Oh ha. Hum.
Explains a lot.
Maybe all this seducing only just leads to mental fungus.
porn | 12.20.11 @ 12:30AM
thanks guys
porno | 12.20.11 @ 12:29AM
yeah realy nice :)
teen porn | 1.9.12 @ 6:03PM
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sikiş | 2.18.12 @ 9:44PM
Once, in the early 50s, he was working on a pipeline out in the center of Missouri somewhere, and the union was trying to get temps to pay union dues or some other payments (dobie dues? I can't remember that far back) that weren't required. Some guys started raising hell.