Helena Frith Powell moved from London to the south of France a few years ago and decided to try to understand why French women are the way they are -- chic, slender, flirtatious, cocky, certain (or stubborn), proud. Her discoveries are both insightful and very funny, historically grounded, culturally informed. Interviews galore--including Sophie Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, and people who still work at Chanel (the last bastion of haute couture on the planet). It seems at first like a light read, but it turns more serious later. The examination of women's role models--they have Simone de Beauvoir and Georges Sand, we have ...? -- point to an interesting requirement among French women: you can't be sexy if you're not smart.