THE TELEGRAPH: Our [The Telegraph’s] writer is an expat newly adrift in the French capital - and what a warm welcome she's receiving.
Paris may be the city of love but it is also the capital of perverts. To experience this, you simply need to be female and walk down the street. You’re almost guaranteed to get your daily dose of dirty old men and if you live on the Left Bank, you really don’t need to go far.
In the space of a few weeks, I have been propositioned by at least a dozen men. As I wait to cross the road, at Saint Michel, a man old enough to be my grandfather leans over towards me and whispers seductively in my ear: "Jolie fesses" (nice bum).
They reveal themselves in broad daylight, in public places. Strolling through the Jardin du Luxembourg on a sunny day, surrounded by pushchair-wheeling mothers and playing children, a middle-aged man standing by the open-air public pissoires, is having a quick one off the wrist.
Now you might suppose, or hope, that this is out of the ordinary behaviour yet my eyes are graced by a similar vision just a few days later. A girlfriend is in mid flow describing the "special" dance scene from Sasha Baron Cohen’s latest film, Bruno, when low and behold, we get our own show right there on the Boulevard Saint Germain.
A respectable looking middle-aged man wearing a suit unzips himself right in front of us and pulls it out. Several similar episodes later, I start to think that maybe this is the norm here in Paris. Or is it me? Do I attract "les vieux cochons"?
I question female friends and colleagues and sure enough they all have similar stories to tell. Perhaps it’s simply that Paris is the pervert capital of the world?
What is it that makes Frenchmen feel that they have the right to proposition women half their age and/or flash at them? Is it something they’re eating? Is someone slipping viagra into their foie gras? Is it something cultural? Or is Paris just "une ville excitante"? >>> Emily Rose | Monday, September 14, 2009
