You can learn a great deal about a culture by looking at the advertisements in its subway stations. According to my informal survey of the Paris Metro, France is a terrible movie-watching, fried chicken-eating, embarrassingly bizarre president-having country with cleanliness issues. Just like us!

Except here, the president’s ratings are in the toilette over somewhat less grave matters. Like, I married a supermodel and can’t stop cursing during meet-and-greets, even though it is probably better not to call your public idiots and tell them to “get lost” in the presence of video cameras in this YouTube-obsessed age.

CHATELET: Here’s Mme. Sarkozy 2.0 herself, promising “I shall do my best.” (Rough translation.)

PLACE D’ITALIE: It’s a party in a bucket, and everyone’s invited. BTW – something in the chicken makes Parisians crave it more than fortnightly, judging by the omnipresence of the Colonel here. At Etoile, where I did not have my camera, there is an entire corridor that is basically one big KFC ad.