FORGET boring old Big Brother, voting starts today on the far more important issue of which London-French person is the best. Names on the Français of the Year Awards list include Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, James Bond siren Eva Green and ballet star Sylvie Guillem.


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They’ve tied the launch of the survey to coincide with one of France’s main national holidays, known as Bastille Day. There’s a lot of talk just now about shoving more people in prison to solve society’s ills, so it’s a bit of a shock to be celebrating the moment in 1789 when the French Revolution began with the storming of Paris’s Bastille gaol and the liberation of its inmates.

But history has a habit of playing funny tricks like that and who would have guessed back then that by 2008, 300,000+ sons and daughters of the Revolution would be living in the capital of the Imperial enemy here in London?

And very welcome they are, too. Some come as part of their career development working for big finance houses, more than 3,000 own businesses in London and others take temporary jobs in cafes and restaurants and ten years later find they’re still here and London has got permanently under their annoyingly olive skin.

The full list of candidates is here, but if you want to read their biogs, you’ll need to brush up on your French. Bon courage!