They Eat Horse
Don’t They?
The Truth About the Fr
by Piu Marie Eatwell
French people always kiss when
they greet you
The social kiss is an exchange of
insincerity between two
combatants on the field of social
advancement. It places hygiene
before affection and condescension
before all else.
london sunday correspondent
How do I kiss thee? Let me count
the ways...
In his celebrated 1,040-page treatise
on the art of snogging, Opus
Polyhistoricum de Osculis, the
seventeenth-century German
philosopher Martin von Kempe
identified no fewer than twenty
kinds of kiss. They included the
reconciliatory kiss, the kiss that
marked social distinctions, t he
contagious kiss, the lusty or
adulterous kiss, the hypocritical kiss,
and the kiss bestowed on the ope s
foot. But what about the art of the
French social kiss? Alas, there the
great polymath was silent. Which is
a pity, as the mysteries of French
social kissing – or faire la bise, as
the French term it – remain in dire
need of elucidation.
So, to kiss, or not to kiss? That is
the uestion. nd if the answer is the
affirmative, how many kisses Starting
which side nd what sort of kiss is
expected – a light peck, an
enthusiastic smack, a graze, caress,
scrape, tickle, or ick of lips to
cheek Whose lips to whose cheek
he good news for foreigners is that
the answers to these uestions are
far from clear, even to native French
people. Kissing as a form of greeting
outside one s circle of close friends or
immediate family was not widespread
in France until the social revolution of
May 1968. Just as les événements
led to an increase in the use of the
informal tu rather than the more
formal vous, so they also resulted in
an explosion in the exchanging of
affectionate bises and perhaps more
intimate displays of friendship –
between young people who had only
just met for the first time. Since
those halcyon days, it is fair to say
that things have calmed down a bit.
Contrary to popular foreign belief, it
is never obligatory in France to kiss a
person whom you haven t met before.
Social kissing is still mainly reserved
for relaxed occasions with family and
friends of the same age, although it
is gradually becoming more common
between work colleagues who know
each other well, as is the case in
other European countries. Most
disconcertingly for uptight
heterosexual Anglo-Saxon males,
it is perfectly acceptable – even
commonplace – in France for straight
men who are good friends or relatives
to kiss each other. This causes acute
consternation for some stiff upper
lipped men of Northern Europe and
merica, who baulk at brushing beards
with the same sex. s one Lieutenant
Colonel D. M. C. Rose complained in
a letter to the Spectator in 2003:
Sir: I was horrified to see our rime
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Minister kissing the President of
Russia. Can you imagine Neville
Chamberlain kissing Hitler, or
Churchill kissing Stalin? Anglo-Saxon
men have never gone in for this
kissing performance. Sometimes they
shake hands, but never the double
two handed shake or clasping of the
arm. Only the Gallic race and the
Arabs go in for hugging and kissing.
o British general would even think
of giving or accepting a kiss from
another man, surely
side from the uestion of whether
to kiss at all, how many kisses to give
and which side to start with is at
least as prickly an issue. Every region
of rance has a different customary
number of kisses and a different
starting side, with the result that
kissing collisions are an everyday
occurrence, as even the rench don t
know half the time when to turn
the other cheek. In most regions of
France, especially the cities, one
exchanges two kisses, starting on
the right cheek; but in parts of