Bonjour. And that, my friends, is pretty much all my French vocab sewn up in one neat little package. Even my six-year-old (happy birthday scruff bag!) is more accomplished at foreign lingo than me. When we were on holiday in France, he not only managed a suave "Banjo" to a pretty little French girl who he sidled up to at an aquarium, he also yodelled "Oh revlaaa" as she retreated quickly away towards the lobster tank.

I just don't feel comfortable speaking, or rather trying to speak French. My strong Yorkshire accent seems to get in the way and I end up mangling the words and sounding like an extra - and not a very good one at that - on 'Allo 'Allo. All I need is a beret, a peasant blouse and a picture of the Madonna with the big boobies under my arm and I'm sorted.

But maybe my complete and utter failure to pick up any French despite having lessons at school for five years is actually a blessing in disguise. Pourquoi, you might well ask (I had to look that up on the Internet)? Well, it's simple really: not speaking French means I will never have to live in France.

Yes, I know it is a country stuffed to the brim with culture, wine, cheese and bread longer than Julia Roberts' legs (42 inches from ankle to hip apparently), and I know everyone and their mama is supposed to want a country retreat in Provence where they can learn to paint and patronise the locals. But I'm not going to France, and you can't make me.

I would quite happily have jumped on a cross-Channel ferry last week, with my grubby old French/English dictionary (complete with the 'I luv David 4 Ever' inscription on the inside front cover from when I was in Mrs Touimi's class) in one hand and my map of the Paris Metro in the other. But that was before I saw the results of a survey that asked women from across Europe their views on weight and exercise, and realised that fat fascism is alive and well and living approximately 26 miles off the South Coast.

While the average dress size in virtually every other country in the union is a 14, the average in France is a piddly little 8. I have never, to my knowledge, been a size 8. I went straight from Mothercare's Junior Miss section to Top Shop's size 10s (and onwards and upwards ever since).

The survey also showed that 16-plus clothes are rarer than great pop bands in France. Sizes 6 to 12 are readily available, but even chain stores like H&M rarely stock anything larger. This means that someone like me, of, let's say, ample proportions, would have to buy a size 6 and a size 12, sew them together and wear that.

As if that wasn't infuriating enough, when asked about dieting the French said they didn't believe in it, opting for 'lifelong moderation' instead.

They then added, endearingly, that the Germans and the British were the fattest people in Europe, a state of affairs that would not be tolerated in their country because being overweight was rated as a social disability.

So now I'm not only a big fattie, I'm also a social pariah, am I? Well, if you think I'm going to come over there and hand over any of my hard-earned euros in exchange for some smelly cheese and a bottle of cheap plonk, you can say 'Oh revlaaa' to that my former French chums.

And it's not because I'm absolutely skint and couldn't muster enough bus fare to get further south than Doncaster. It's a matter of principle. The revolution starts here.

Updated: 09:22 Monday, December 06, 2004