THE MONARCHY IS STILL BIG BUSINESS IN FRANCE

The French Revolution was a bloody affair, only confirmed by the gory spectacle we witnessed in the Olympic Games opening ceremony. You may think we would be over the Ancien Régime and the abolition of privileges would put us off its most extravagant and scandalous excesses.

Pas du tout !

The Château de Versailles boasted 8,4 million visitors in 2024, Buckingham Palace only 647,000. It is the subject of numerous films and TV series, and Marie-Antoinette stars in a new exhibition at the V&A.

It is also a great source of inspiration, and derision, in French advertising. The Citroën C3 TV commercial is one of the latest. Largely inspired by Sofia Coppola’s film, it is anarchic and fun, starring a young princess with pink hair, getting away in a C3 with a bunch of rocking revolutionaries on a Bowie soundtrack.

In France, a number of TV and radio ads regularly expose the silliness of the aristocracy and the common sense of the little people battling against their extravagance.

In a TV ad for TotalEnergies, a man goes from room to room in a house, turning off lights, yelling “C’est pas Versailles ici !”, a French expression that means “Turn the lights off”.

Another shows a man in a wig, dressed up in 17 C. fashion in a bed, selling Trianon mattresses, inspired by great palaces.

A radio ad for la banque CIC makes fun of an aristocrat against any improvement, and his servant tries to propose common-sense solutions.

With a French President who behaves like a monarch, and the splendours and ridicule of the Ancien Régime a great source of inspiration from interior décor to fashion, the French monarchy’s cultural imprint on our consciousness is deep. It remains a rich vein of inspiration and creativity in advertising that largely exploits its clichés in style with a sense of derision that is never far from comedy.

So, will I go and see the Marie-Antoinette exhibition at the V&A? Certainement pas ! For the price of £23, I’d rather go to the Procope café-restaurant in Paris, where the American and French revolutions were plotted, and drink to la République.

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