French is the sexiest accent in the world for Brits, according to French car manufacturer Renault
Researchers at Renault must think highly of themselves – news reaches us from the motor maker that the British public rate French as the sexiest accent in the world.
City workers are known for littering sentences with awful pieces of jargon, but one in seven Brits also drop French into day-to-day conversations in a bid to add a certain je ne sais quois to their daily correspondence. Renault claims that "one in six Brits claim un petit peu of French adds Va Va Voom to conversation."
French beat Italian and English to the top of the carmaker's list of the 10 most attractive accents in the world. American placed in sixth, while Australian and Russian lag behind at the bottom of the table.
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The news comes after something of a cultural spat has broken out between France and Italy. During a press conference with Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma at an Italian wine festival in Verona earlier this month, Italian Prime Minister provoked the ire of the French after suggesting wines produced in his country are better than theirs.
But its not all good news for Renault. The carmaker, which takes full credit for the phrase "va va voom" making it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004 after launching an ad campaign with Thierry Henry that year, provides us with a list of the top ten French phrases used by Brits. Va va voom didn't make the cut, but researchers may want to direct their attention to the phrase "faux pas", which does place in the top ten.
Not ones to let a little thing like facts ruin a good story, a spokesperson for Renault said: "This year marks 25 years of the seductive Renault Clio in the UK – the car that invented Va Va Voom – so it’s great to see that people are still using the term today."