TY - BOOK AU - Wadham,Lucy TI - The secret life of France SN - 9780571236114 (pbk.) U1 - 306.0944 PY - 2009/// CY - London PB - Faber and Faber KW - Wadham, Lucy, KW - Novelists, English KW - Homes and haunts KW - France KW - French KW - Attitudes KW - British KW - Intellectual life KW - 20th century KW - Social life and customs N1 - Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-268) and index; 1. Proposal : driving and breakfast -- 2. The secret garden -- Slap and tickle, guilt and parking -- Adultery and the cult of beauty -- 3. Being a woman : la libido, la femme fatale and the sisterhood -- 4. Truth versus beauty -- Tragedy, comedy and historic French losers -- Television, hypocrisy and ideas -- 5. The wedding -- Catholicism, anti-semitism and le pen -- Languae, yoghurt and hot rabbits -- 6. Sublime, necessarily sublime -- Mayors, mass demonstration and mayhem -- Nobility, freedom and status -- 7. Maternity -- Glory, breastfeeding and the norm -- 8. Education -- Freud, maths and the cult of reason -- Smiley happy people -- 9. The past -- The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie -- French rudeness, surrender and betrayal -- Collaboration and defeat -- 10. Foreign affairs -- Cake and spies -- Anti-Americanism and la force de frappe -- 11. Tolérance zéro -- Cops and spooks -- France's war on terror -- 12. Sarkozy and the end of ideology -- Sex dwarves and the patriarchy -- The society of the spectacle and the end of the secret garden -- 13. Black, blanc, beur -- Football, rap and role models -- 14. Epilogue -- Douce France ER -