Paris - The French are unclean, writes Lara Marlowe. Le Figaro's front-page headline said so yesterday. Less than half of all French men and women - 47 per cent according to surveys - take a bath or shower daily. And experts consulted in the newspaper's wide-ranging investigation into French hygiene warned that people exaggerate their cleanliness when questioned. Judging from the amount of soap sold in France, they suspect only 40 per cent of French people wash themselves daily.
French women are cleaner than men, single people are cleaner than married couples, and young people and citydwellers outwash senior citizens and those in rural areas. Seventy per cent of French women use deodorant, compared to only 50 per cent of French men. Three quarters of French women - but only 60 per cent of French men - change their underclothes daily. Farmers have an average of 3.5 baths or showers per week, and Brittany - whose inhabitants wash completely only 3.8 time a week - is the least clean region.
So perhaps it's not surprising that the French purchase less than half as much soap (600 grams) as the average Briton, who buys 1.4 kilos of soap every year. French doctors complained of dirty underclothes and foul body odours among their patients.
The French have "difficult and complex relations with hygiene", Le Figaro concluded.