France expat life: Everything Emily in Paris gets wrong

Four years ago, Emily Cooper bounded onto our screens, full of faux pas, Americanisms, and an excessive wardrobe poached straight from The Hunger Games’ Capitol. I watched it from Cornwall under lockdown, likely still clad in my sweaty gym kit, with a sense of nostalgia for my own gaffs and holiday romances during my student year abroad in France.

Emily’s initial move to Paris comes as a surprise, when she steps in to replace her pregnant boss. My own move was no less surprising, although far more tragic, and it was my father’s death that triggered the life upheaval. Since I’m more comfortable spending the day in my gym kit than a Beetlejuice catsuit, I opted for Lyon over Paris. As Emily in Paris prepares to wrap up her fourth season in France, I’m just beginning my fourth year here. While the show has lost none of its enjoyability, I’m not too sure what expat world Emily is living in.

Oddly enough, Emily’s work life at Savoir, chock full of office drama, is where I see the most accurate representation of French life. It’s not for the catty comments – to my knowledge, no-one has ever called me ‘la plouc’ (country bumpkin) – nor for the mingling of business and pleasure, but for the work hours. I work in a coworking space, but even here, long lunch breaks (often at a restaurant) are an institution. An expat friend who works a ‘normal’ job arrives at work at 8.30am each day, only to spend the first hour of the day alone, just like the over-keen Emily. Like Emily, she’s arrived at the office before to find the lights off and the doors still locked.

Read more: The best hotels in Paris

This is a show that has always served up eye candy. At the start of season four, Emily tells her best friend Mindy, who’s in the shower (though, unbeknownst to Emily, she’s actually speaking to her love interest, Gabriel, who’s popped around the use the shower): “I saw hot men everywhere.”

I remember thinking the same when I moved to Lyon from Cornwall, my eyes on stalks as I was confronted with the selection. Are French men really sexier, or was I just flitting from a very small pool in lockdown to a much larger, more open one? Open in all senses of the word, it seems, as Emily’s love life is…