TO BE in love in Paris was the universal teenage dream of the ‘80s.

To that end, I sat through five years of French lessons, reciting “Le chat est sur le table,” (why doesn’t someone shoo him off?), salivating over Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence and studying Emmanuelle Beart’s blue-eyed ingenue in the entrancing sequel to Jean de Florette. I was a devoted Francophile and eventually, in the summer of 1995, my dedication was rewarded when I stood on the Pont Des Artes kissing a man I adored. Nearly 20 years later, I can still recall the sun setting on the Seine, the bowl of bouillabaisse, then strolling back hand-in-hand to our fire hazard of a hotel. Paris, as Ernest Hemingway had observed, was a “moveable feast” — a strumpet of a city, as alluring for its gold-dipped monuments as its characteristic sangfroid. Everything about it felt vital, possible — and the contrasts of old and new, of intellectual and visceral, were perfectly captured in that straddle of steel and lace that is the Eiffel Tower. Not so now. France, the nation that once seduced with its culture, gastronomy, wine, architecture, fashion, its infuriating Frenchness, is now the bloated boy of Europe. Like the gormless, chinless Francois Hollande, the country has lost its panache and lumbers as unappealingly as a Montmartre “artist” after le déjeuner of claret and foie gras. Everything about it feels sullied and tired: the thousands of cheap love locks that hang like a rusting eyesore on my beloved bridge. The artlessness of Hollande’s affair — a scooter! For God’s sake man, have some pride. The finance minister falling asleep in a crucial euro zone meeting and having to be nudged awake by Christine Lagarde. Like me decades earlier, my daughter has opted to study French. “How about Japanese?” I suggest, “Then you can speak to your cousins. Or Mandarin, so you can be at the forefront of the new global economy and earn squillions?” But she wants to do French. I suspect it’s the enduring “otherness” of the nation, the expectation of an elegance to match the language, the promise of pastries for breakfast. Maybe she thinks the place is full of would-be versions of Daft Punk knocking out songs like the sinuous Get Lucky. I don’t tell her France is as stale as a four-day-old croissant, that Daft Punk alongside the movies The Artist and The Intouchables are the nation’s only notable artistic endeavours of the new millennium. Should I tell her all creative institutes are now run by cultural bureaucrats, that her romantic notion of writers in garrets and painters on the street has been replaced by subsidies and protection measures to insulate artists from foreign influence? Even the fashion would have Coco Chanel turning in her quilted coffin — yes, the couture houses are still turning out Euro luxe for the Arabs and Russians, but where is France’s Zara or H&M? Where’s its street fashion? On my last visit, the men were still wearing cashmere pullovers and Gucci loafers while the women were uninspiring in ballet pumps and their ubiquitous navy blazers. So far, so 1980s. Food, too, is stuck in a time warp. Once at the cutting edge of cuisine, the bistros are still offering flaccid croque monsieur and overcooked sole meunière. There is only one French entry in the 2014 list of the world’s 20 best restaurants, compared to three from Spain. As for the clutch of books boasting about the moral superiority of French women at everything from child raising to seduction to not getting fat, well, it’s a lie. Thirty-two per cent of the nation is overweight and a further 15 per cent is obese. Zut alors! And this, the lingerie capital of the world. So what’s gone wrong? How has Vive La France been usurped by Croatia and the Czech Republic? No one’s interested in anyone’s year in Provence now. If Australian author Sarah Turnbull pitched Almost French this month, I’m guessing the publisher would say: “Yeah, but can you make it Almost Barcelona?” It’s easy to blame Hollande, so we will. He’s presided over a rise in taxes, public debt and unemployment, resulting in an approval rating as low as 18 per cent. Actor Gerard Depardieu left for Belgium in disgust, then further annoyed his homeland by accepting a Russian passport. The French are famously unbothered by affairs and overlook the cinq a sept (literally, the 5pm-7pm liaison between a man and his mistress). What they couldn’t tolerate was Hollande’s lack of style — the President in a motorcycle helmet is as far as you can get from a shirtless Olivier Martinez. Unfortunately, the political alternatives aren’t great: a reheated Nicolas Sarkozy or the far-right’s popular Marine Le Pen, a woman with the visual appeal of Catherine Deneuve but an arguably dangerous ideology. We can only hope France will shake off its malaise and rediscover its savoir faire. Until then, the world’s most romantic city will remain as appealing as a frite-munching, tracksuit-wearing Euro Disney queue. Email: angelamollard@gmail.com Twitter: @angelamollard