It’s very tempting to walk through Paris wearing imaginary glasses (Chanel) that filter out anything that doesn’t fit in with a preconceived image of the city. I stalk people who I feel are likely to make a charming comment about how great strikes are, or lunch, or black lace. “Ha!” I cry to myself, committing the Bastille-worthy sin of smiling in the public space, “I can tell mum about that on Skype tonight!” (Perhaps I’m not making the most of my year abroad…)

    The main problem with this strategy is that one becomes some sort of ambulant fascist censor. One of the figures that I always censor from my mental photograph is the Parisian jogger. Reputed abroad to be a rare breed, within the city he is often believed to be the American-in-Paris jogger who, misleadingly, treads the same turf as the Parisian jogger and is only distinguishable by his immense height and superior quality of running shoes.

    It turns out, however, that most of the joggers in Paris are actually French. I know this because I have stopped them and asked them, and they were very rude to me, so they must have been French. (This isn’t actually true, but as a Year Abroad student I feel a sort of responsibility to perpetuate clichés.)

    Confronting the Parisians with the ‘widely-held Anglo-Saxon belief’ that the French don’t do any sport at all, are naturally slim just by walking in high heels and making love vigorously (femmes) or skinny and weedy and too petulant for team sports (hommes), I was frequently crushed. “There is a great sporting culture in France”, said Laurent, a 27-year-old fireman. “Lots of Parisians jog, but they get up very early so you don’t see them”. I leapt on this, remembering an acquaintance of mine who takes the metro to a park far away from her quartier to go jogging so that nobody she knows will see her.  “That’s because French social codes say it is shameful to take exercise in public, isn’t it?” I said to Laurent, excitedly. “No, it is because the streets get very busy and it is less practical”. Damn.

Later that day I set off to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (the only green splodge on the map I could get to and from in my lunch hour), hoping at least to see some tourists jogging between the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde, but was disappointed. “I have noticed”, I said to a man building a tomb, “that there is nobody jogging today. This is surely because the French are a nation of cyclists”. “Non, mademoiselle”, he replied, “it is because in France it is forbidden to jog in places of worship.”

    I persevered: “Would you say that the French are particularly fond of cycling because one can sit down?” I suggested wittily. “Non, I would say that it is because France, with its great variety of terrain, is an ideal landscape for cyclists.” You can’t really argue with that. I was starting to panic that I wouldn’t have anything to put in my article, so I sold out and asked a St Germain-des-Près waiter and later a Montmartre portrait painter, who both replied that Parisians didn’t do sport because all they care about is “les femmes, et la bouffe!” Inverting the responses of these people who are paid to spout bullshit to tourists is a sure way to find out the Truth: Parisians take exercise, just like everyone else.