I love the way Paris has hosted the Olympics . OK, so the opening ceremony was flatter than a dry crèpe with no Nutella on it, but so what? Only that city could give you a terrible fashion show involving a Smurf and a woman with an aerial on her head – interspersed with people from Nauru waving on a boat – and make you feel grateful for it. The fact that Paris refuses to make allowances for anyone is part of its charm, of course, but it’s always terrified me.
Whenever I go there I am gripped by the stinging humiliation of Not Being French, and worse, being a lardy British rosbif who can’t find the Metro. If there were an Olympic medal for Not Understanding The Rules of A Patisserie, Running for the Ryanair Airport Bus, or Being Glared at By An Elderly Woman With a Small Dog, I’d be dripping in gold. And like Simone Biles, I would have pushed those disciplines to their limits with brand new signature moves, such as Triple Humiliation in a Restaurant Using GCSE French.
Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter Perhaps that’s why I’ve developed an abiding love for a character so resilient in the face of haughty Parisian indifference that she has changed the rules completely. Yes, as soon as the pommel horses are packed away and the Olympic village is disinfected, our old friend Emily In Paris will be returning to Netflix for a fourth season, possibly wearing a skirt made from Tunnocks Tea Cake wrappers, and I CANNOT WAIT. Now I know I slagged off the show in this very column when it first came out, but I feel it’s important to acknowledge when you’re wrong.
And I was very wrong about Emily in Paris . It is a work of comic genius. A fabulous confection.
Hilarious, knowing and joyfully silly, to the point where you’re just shaking your head and shouting ‘ zut alors !’ into the void. Emily, the ‘stylish’ social media PR guru with a limited understanding of how social media works, has been derided since she first arrived in Paris and instantly got three million likes for a photo of some dog poo. She and her cartoonish friends are hideous stereotypes, people say.
It’s clichéd, they say. It’s offensive to French people, they say. (These people have obviously never watched ’Allo ’Allo!.
) But I think we’ll survive, because Emily is fun, and god knows we all need a bit of that. Paris – and internet naysayers – are no match for the sheer force of her neon outfits and all-American optimism. Who else has the sheer brass ballons to walk down the Champs Elysées wearing a beret made of chicken wire and carrying a handbag in the shape of a poodle? Her confidence opens large ornate doors and French windows wherever she goes, and despite a complete lack of talent, foresight or sense, she manages to position herself at the cutting edge of French culture.
She doesn’t even have a basic command of the language, yet she’s friends with all the fictional high rollers, who for some reason take her stupid ideas really seriously. She also gets men to fall in love with her, exceptionally handsome men with charming, magical restaurants that serve escargot on toast. When I’m in Paris with Emily, nothing can go wrong.
The city opens up like the warm, inviting, bouncy insides of a freshly torn croissant, and I’m no longer a bag of nerves, fumbling my way through some torturous request in terrible French. The idea that all Parisian women are beautiful and wear perfect trench coats no longer concerns me. Emily doesn’t care, so neither do I! There’s no look too withering, or social humiliation too profound to affect her sunshiney disposition.
If life gives Emily lemons, she not only makes lemonade, she turns the Pompidou Centre into a giant lemon and invites French society to the launch. I can’t wait to see what incredible, frankly unrealistic feats she performs next. Whatever they are, I’m sure they’ll be gold.
Emily in Paris season four will be streaming on Netflix from 15 August. Lucy Sweet is a freelance journalist. Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more .
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