The French are much better at having sex than talking about it What annoys the French is that this is not the sex that makes us, as a nation, look good. Jean-Paul Belmondo's affairs with Ursula Andress? Yves Montand's with Marilyn Monroe? Even Jacques Chirac's with Claudia Cardinale? French panache conquers all. We like being the nation of Napoleon and Josephine. But an alleged ravisher of hotel cleaning ladies and Lille prostitutes? Not interested. We're also unhappy about DSK's defence of himself. True, the French usually take any apology for a sign of weakness. All the same, in his refusal to take any responsibility for the outrage to national dignity he has caused, we recognise the dismay of one of the ruling class, suddenly realising his privileges have been revoked. That's enough to make us turn Madame Defarge on him. As for Madame DSK, the former TV interviewer and art heiress Anne Sinclair, she is as unrepentant as her husband, whom she still supports. Some wives might have chosen to stay out of the public eye. Not the beautiful Anne, who has been asked by another millionairess, Arianna Huffington, née Stassinopoulos, to become the editor of the French Huffington Post. The spectacle of these two wealthy women asking contributors to work without pay has not gone down well. One cartoon had Anne telling a HuffPo blogger: "If you're a bit tight this month, darling, do like me, flog a little Matisse!" Among Asma Assad's flurry of internet shopping disclosed in recent (alleged) emails were purchases from Mrs Assad's Paris-based jeweller cousin, Amal Akhras: necklaces in gold, onyx, pavé diamonds and turquoises - just what the well-dressed dictator's wife needs. I was amazed to realise I knew Amal, and in the 1990s even spent a weekend at her parents" country house, which used to belong to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Moulin de la Tuilerie outside Paris. Strangely enough, although keen to get press coverage, Miss Akhras never boasted of her Syrian connections. I wonder why.