For more than 50 years, Gallic boffins have explained through a cloud of smoke from their untipped Gitanes that French people are simply built to a higher standard than people from other countries. They are the human race’s Swiss watches. Japanese trains in trousers. They can eat and drink and smoke as much as they like and they will still live to be 112.
It was known as the French paradox, and it was annoying. Because it was true. Elsewhere in the world, people jogged and ate kale and died when they were 12. Whereas Johnny French could spend all day in a plastic chair at the side of the road, eating fat geese and quaffing red wine, and he’d still outlive most giant tortoises.
So, like everyone, I was thrilled to read a report in The Times last week which said that the paradox was bunkum, and that in fact the French have bigger cardiovascular problems than we do. Much bigger. On the other side of the Channel 5.6 per cent of the population is living with a diseased heart whereas over here it’s just 3 per cent.
Annoyingly, I was so pleased to discover this that I kept on reading. And as a result I learnt that, contrary to the bouncy ya-boo-sucks nature of the headline and the upbeat tone in the first few paragraphs, they do continue to be thinner than us. And that despite the fact that they all have fatty walnuts instead of hearts, they still live longer too.
I also learnt something else. The number of smokers in France is rising. Even though their cigarettes are filled with manure and paraffin, they’re actually taking it up with more vigour as each year goes by. Women especially. Today 27.4 per cent of French men smoke and 21.7 per cent of women. Whereas in the UK, it’s 11.9 per cent across both sexes.
I’m amazed it’s even that many. I remember, back in the Eighties, talking to a bore who said that he didn’t know a single person who smoked. And I replied saying I didn’t know anyone who didn’t. That wasn’t entirely true — my sister’s never even had a puff. But it was close. Smoking among my friends was a rite of passage. You smoked. Then you had sex. Then you got a driving licence and only then were you deemed wise and mature enough to vote.
I had my first cigarette at 14, while at corps camp. I disliked it very much and never smoked a Benson & Hedges ever again. But soon I was a 50-a-day man. Number Sixes to start with and then Marlboro Reds. I had a cigarette before getting out of bed in the morning to celebrate the fact I’d made it through the night and then I’d have one to celebrate equally momentous achievements throughout the day: successfully making a cup of coffee; finding my coat; putting on my seatbelt.
Sometimes I’d go for a walk to find a nice spot for a smoke and sometimes I had two on the go at the same time, in case one hand was busy doing something else. Once I made a contraption that allowed me to smoke while scuba diving.
And no one thought I was odd. Because everyone was at it. But then I stopped and so did everyone else. Today, the cigarette lighter in your car is used only to charge your health monitor watch. And at home, ashtrays have become like video cassette recorders. Something that exists only in the loft.
In many ways I salute the 11.9 per cent who are still at it. Forking out £16.45 for a packet of fags, so that the NHS is properly funded, and then being forced by the same government who fleeces them to sit in the rain every time they want to light up; it takes a special kind of determination and a very big heart to do that, and I wish them well.
Will they die of lung cancer? Maybe. But you might, too. In fact, the number of so-called “never-smokers” who catch this dreadful disease is actually rising. Some are saying that the 35,000 lung cancer deaths every year at the moment will rise to 41,000 by 2040. Naturally, the Starmerites are blaming air pollution for this and say the trend would be reversed if only we’d listen to Ed Miliband. And buy an electric car. Not a Tesla though. They are definitely the third biggest cause of cancer. After space rockets. And the internet you get from Starlink satellites, which incidentally, also gives you Aids.
And that brings us back to yet more disappointing news from France. Because even though there are millions more smokers over there than there are here, the number of people who die from lung cancer is about the same.
There’s always going to be an “expert” on hand to explain this, but if you take politics and global warming and health zealotry out of it, you are left with the fact that the French have diseased lungs and fat hearts and arteries like a Bangladesh sewer, and they don’t die. Why?
It’s a question I once posed to a charming French dietitian who took me out for an ortolan when I was in Gascony a few years ago. I still remember his advice very clearly. “When you eat, don’t rush. Take your time, sit down and don’t eat with ugly people. Find pleasant company and try to laugh when eating.” And it wasn’t just how you should eat either. The “what” matters too. “Not the fat from mutton or beef. Pork is better but the fat from birds is best. Duck or goose. And best of all is olive oil. And you should drink red wine when you are eating. Not too much. But some.”
Obviously, I raised a quizzical eyebrow at all this, but he simply produced a copy of the local paper, turned to the obituary notices and showed me the elongated ages of people who’d died that week. And then he opened another bottle, lit another Disque Bleu and went off to live longer than a bowhead whale.