First British women came under attack for being chubbier and less chic than their stylish Gallic sisters. Now another critical salvo has been fired across the Channel, this time over our ability to bring up well-behaved children.
Forget the euro crisis. This latest attack in the entente discordiale strikes at the heart of parental angst and highlights a fundamental gulf in parenting philosophy between the British and French.
It also taps into the British self-flagellation previously aired in the 2004 dieting tome French Women Don't Get Fat.
In her book French Children Don't Throw Food, out this month, American mother-of-three Pamela Druckerman, who lives in Paris, asks how the French manage to raise children who, unlike many of their US or British counterparts, sleep through the night at two months, are not picky eaters, do not throw tantrums in the supermarket and go to bed without making a fuss, while their mothers "continue looking so cool and sexy".
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