The Riviera Reporter interviews Piu Marie Eatwell, author of They Eat Horses Don’t They? The Truth About the French (UK: Head of Zeus), her first non-fiction book. 

Riviera Reporter:
Did one specific “myth” plant the seed for They Eat Horses, or was it a series of points that accumulated over time in your mind?

Piu Marie Eatwell:
The myths that annoyed me most, and which really inspired the desire to expose them in this book - along with investigating other French myths - were those that “French women don’t get fat” and “French children don’t throw food”. It seemed to me that not only were some expats making a great deal of money churning out these (incorrect) assertions, but that they were also making non-French women feel inadequate. Not only are we all fat and ugly, but we can’t raise children either! The fact is that French women are (increasingly) getting fatter, apart from a mainly Parisian and bourgeois minority; and that French children do have tantrums over eating their steak au poivre. After all, French kids recently came bottom out of a recent European survey for discipline in class. Time to re-think the clichés, non?

Riviera Reporter:
The book includes very recent facts (Horsegate, DSK). How long did it take you from start to finish to produce They Eat Horses?

Piu Marie Eatwell:
This is quite a tricky question to answer, as the book had to go through many drafts and revisions before I finally felt I had captured the right tone. Part of the difficulty was that the book had to be serious and factual – I really wanted to get away from the whimsical, jokey tone that has characterised this type of “expat” book about the French up to now – but it had to be entertaining and fun to read, as well. Finally, the editor and I hit on the idea of including lots of snippets of information and quotations, along with illustrations, to give it a quirky feel, whilst still keeping the serious content. In all, it must have taken just over a year to complete, from the first draft to the final edit. The “horsegate” scandal hit mid-way in writing the book so of course I had to re-write the “French eat horsemeat” chapter in the wake of it, and in fact I was updating the book with new info all along, as I was determined to make it as up-to-the-minute as possible. My editor eventually put his foot down about further updates as the book was just going to press!

Riviera Reporter:
What was the most surprising piece of information that you came across during your research?

Piu Marie Eatwell:
The fact that France is the number one market for McDonalds after America!

Riviera Reporter:
Which character trait of the French do you feel is least likely to ever change?

Piu Marie Eatwell:
I think the French will always be a more conservative society, more rule-abiding and attached to the “norm” than the free-wheeling, free-marketing, and individualistic Anglo-Saxons.

Riviera Reporter:
Do you have any plans for future books on France and the French?

Piu Marie Eatwell:
I do have some ideas for future books about the French, but I only want to write a book that’s needed (which I think this one was). I have no desire to add to the existing deluge of tomes on how to discover your inner Frenchwoman, “Breakfast in Paris with recipes”, or falling in love with a French mechanic in the Dordogne, etc. If there’s room for more hard-hitting and investigative, albeit entertaining explorations of contemporary France, I’m up for it! My next book, however (planned for publication next autumn) is very different – true crime in Victorian England! Although it does also have a myth-busting, investigative approach to the subject…