A literary, lustful and possibly lecherous "Guide" claims that the freedom to contemplate the beauty of women is a key part of French culture. Vive la difference?

   A speech-writer for France's foreign minister has penned a literary, lustful and possibly lecherous "Guide to the Pretty Women of Paris" which blows a loud raspberry at American political correctness.
"Just as every region has its gastronomy, every quartier has its feminine
speciality," writes Pierre-Louis Colin, a dapper 34-year-old who co-authored
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's most recent book.

"You do not find in Menilmontant the sublime legs you see at the Madeleine.
But you do find perfectly shameless cleavages, radiant breasts often uncluttered by a bra," he said in his own book published last month.

 Paris is the most visited capital in the world and, Colin told AFP, people come here to see city's magnificent women as much as they come to admire the
Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower.

He could find no guidebooks to the human wonders of Paris so he decided to
produce his own. The result is the 190-page "Guide des jolies femmes de
Paris," which is more of a literary essay than a fact-packed guidebook.

Area by area, Colin notes the best observation posts -- bars, supermarkets, parks, museums, metro trains -- and the best times of day for the connoisseur to contemplate various Parisienne archetypes.

   "Trendy youth," characterised by the "generalisation of the G-string and
the near disappearance of the bra" is to be seen on rue Montorgueil, a
pedestrian strip of cafes and upmarket food shops which the author hails as
the "epicentre of the city's erotic radiations."

   Luxury boutiques and elegant cafe terraces are the natural habitat of the
leisured bourgeoise, who is described as "the mother of all fantasies since
the origins of literature."

   Forty- to 60-year-old women in the "saucy maturity" category, whose
appearance "bears witness to the meanders of an agitated or ambitious sex life
which refuses to lay down its weapons," are best observed in lingerie stores.
   The author, a graduate of the elite Ecole Normale Superieure which has
honed writers like Jean-Paul Sartre, sees his work as a "high mission" to
counter the mood of a righteous America, but some extracts may raise eyebrows.

   Colin regrets, for instance, it is no longer possible to loiter contemplatively outside high schools because "current legislation and a certain form of collective psychosis have created a climate of suspicion that makes every admirer of young girls a rapist of children."

   He also gives many tips such as where to position oneself in a particular
bar so as to get an "unbeatable view" up women's skirts as they climb a spiral
staircase -- the Cafe Louis-Philippe in the fourth arrondissement, or district.
   But it's all in the best possible taste, insists Colin.

   He rejected suggestions that an alternative title for his oeuvre might have
been the "Voyeur's Guide to the Pretty Women of Paris" -- though concedes  his
girlfriend was at first perturbed by the idea of his book but later came to
like it.

   The author points out that he has included no information on how to pick up women nor provided addresses for any of the French capital's numerous dens of iniquity.

   "To contemplate is not to encounter," he writes in his introduction. "Therein lies without doubt the profound originality of the contemplator in these consumerist times: his aim is not possession.

   "He is similar to those rare lovers of art who visit museums without feeling obliged to walk out loaded down with guidebooks or postcards," wrote Colin.

   When AFP met the author in Cafe de L'Esplanade, which Colin said was of note more for its busty waitresses than for its sober clientele, he insisted that his book was striking a blow for women's freedom.

   "I oppose all those who want to restrict women - the priest, the man who
pesters women, the censor," said the dark-haired author, dressed neatly in a
dark jacket and a well-pressed light blue shirt.

   He dismisses Anglo-Saxon political correctness and boldly states that the
freedom to contemplate the beauty of women is a key part of French culture.

   "In this troubled century, while from America come the echoes of another
moral order, the responsibility of the contemplator is immense: in his
respectful courtesy depends a part of the survival of our civilisation of
liberty, of gentleness, and of grace.

   "May this guide contribute to the success of this high mission," Colin
wrote.

(AFP - expatica May 2008)