In the minds of the British, France has long been associated with ‘naughty sex’, or sex for sex’s sake rather than ‘true love’. It may come as something of a disappointment to some therefore to learn that: ‘Love is back in fashion (in France). . . . The sex dictatorship is over!’

That is the view of the serious French political weekly, Le Nouvel Observateur, on the basis of the findings of a poll published last month. An astonishing 50 percent of French women claim only to have made love with one man in their lives, while a mere 6 percent profess to having had more than 10 lovers.

The number of men who have made love with only one woman is much smaller than that for women – 19 percent. It is nevertheless surprising in this reputedly promiscuous age to find that more than half of French men have had sexual relations with fewer than six women in their lives, and only one in eight claims to have made love to more than 10.

Both sexes say they lay great store by fidelity, putting that at the top of their list of ‘most beautiful gestures of love’, with kissing and cuddling second. The sexual act is relegated to fourth place by women, only 13 percent considering that an important feature of love, while even with men it ranked only third.

Dr Pierre Simon, author of a report on French sexual behaviour, published in 1969 in the midst of the so-called sexual revolution, said it appeared from the poll as if the traditional values of love and fidelity were making a comeback: ‘We are seeing a resurgence of pre-war middle-class values, he said.

Other polls seem to support Dr Simon’s view. One showed that a surprising 84 percent of married French people claim to be still in love with their spouse, and say they would remarry the same person. Another indicated that two thirds of French women prefer petting to the sexual act and 36 percent claim they could do without sexual intercourse altogether.

This might seem less surprising when one learns that, despite their ubiquitous bidets, the French pay relatively little attention to personal hygiene. Indeed, a poll carried out for the French federation of cosmetic, perfume and hygiene industries shows the French to be one of the most lax nations in Europe as far as their consumption of soap, toothpaste and deodorants is concerned.

The average French person uses just four bars of soap a year, half as much as the average Briton; three tubes of toothpaste, compared with five for the average Briton; and rather less than one container of deodorant. Although virtually all the French now live in homes with either a bath or a shower, as many as two thirds do not wash themselves thoroughly every day and nearly one in five admits to not even washing properly once a week.

More than half the French go to bed without brushing their teeth, and a fifth wear the same underwear for several days in succession. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter, as 40 percent maintain that ‘a body can still be sexually attractive without being impeccably clean.’

There may be some link between the Frenchman’s lack of regular personal hygiene and his penchant for the bathroom for his amorous activities. After the bedroom, the bathroom is apparently the most common place for French couples to make love, with the kitchen in third place, though ideally they would prefer the country, in the open air.

As for the Frenchman’s vaunted sexual prowess, 55 percent claim to make love several times a week. But that claim has to be considered in the context of a study carried out last year by a Paris-based centre for research into impotency, which showed that two out of every five French men over the age of 40 have trouble getting an erection . The problem gests rapidly worse with age, so that by the age of 60, nearly three quarters of French men are suffering from difficulties.

However, people are not always at their most truthful when answering polls on their sexual behaviour, and may give the answer they feel the pollster wants, or which puts them in a favourable light. Thus, when the accent is on free love, everyone seems to have lots of sexual partners and to make love every day, but when the fashion swings back toward fidelity and true love the promiscuity ratings fall dramatically, even though many of the same type of people are involved. Sexual behaviour may change, but one cannot suddenly change the number of lovers one has had in one’s life, and most of the people who were young at the time of the sexual revolution at the end of the 1960s are still only in their late thirties and early forties today.

Dr Simon’s comments in Le Nouvel Observateur do not seem to apply to the younger age group, according to another poll in Elle magazine. Those show that three quarters of young people in France aged between 15 and 25 have made love at least once, and more than half made love for the first time before they were 19. More than two fifths had already had more than one sexual partner (5 per cent claimed to have made more than 10), while nearly half considered fidelity was not important for a satisfactory sex life.

Perhaps France hasn’t changed so much after all, or perhaps it never was quite so ‘naughty’ as it’s made out to be.