BEHIND every great man there has to be a great woman, as Aretha Franklin once proclaimed.

I'm not sure that particular statement has ever been translated into French. It probably doesn't quite withstand the translation. I think it is probably fair to say that France is not one of the countries in the vanguard of the fight for feminine equality. Metropolitan France may well be further advanced, but rural France is firmly anchored in the days of "Woman, know your place!"

A woman's role is still clearly defined: she exists to keep home, bring up children, serve up meals and make preserves, while her husband goes out with his mates blasting away at fluffy creatures and slurping gallons of the red stuff.

But things have been changing over the years. Women have been found to be also capable of carrying out paid work. Telephone any public department and there are quite a few of them. The chances are, in fact, that a woman will answer your call. Women man the front-of-house of almost all businesses. They answer calls, process paper and do just about everything that makes a business tick. It is only when you step into the back office to see the manager that you will notice a gender difference. Matters that require careful consideration, a long lunch, a signature or a mistress are best left to the more capable sex.

These roles are also true of small businesses. No self-respecting artisan gives anybody his mobile number; you are always given his home number, where the Rottweiler wife can shield her husband from customers who unreasonably want their job finished, while the husband gets down to the serious business of skiving for a living.

One job that French femininity has really made its own is post-person. Women seem to have stretched the role from one of simply delivering the mail to extend it to rally-testing for Renault to see exactly what is the top speed of a basic Clio on a country lane, and the answer seems to be pretty damned quick.

So does the country that still reveres the saintly memory of Joan of Arc - so cruelly burnt by the British - value its backbone of female workers? I'm not sure. It does appear that the glass ceiling seems to be hit somewhere around the minimum wage, but this doesn't seem to be a hugely contentious issue.

There are of course notable exceptions. Ségolene Royal very nearly became our president. Okay, I'm struggling a bit. But you do get the feeling that the French woman is quite comfortable with her lot. She is happy to do all of the hard work and let the man make all of the important decisions. Then she can get down to the real work of undermining his authority, delivering his post to the wrong house, giving his mobile number to his customers and putting crushed glass in his omelette.

Beware, and don't ever let that great woman become a great woman scorned.