I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve led a safe life. I haven’t jumped out of a plane, or off anything with a bungee rope attached to my leg. I only have one tiny tattoo because I grew up being told by adults that if I wrote on my hand too much I’d end up with ink poisoning. And the closest I’ve come to reckless injury is the time I broke my little toe on an ornamental rock at my yoga studio.

But somehow, I become a little less cautious every time I visit France, a country with a slightly different attitude to rules and safety. As a French teacher and card-carrying Francophile, I have orchestrated my life to spend as much time here as I can. But it’s not the cheese or the wine that keep me coming back – it’s the people, who I’ve always found to be the perfect blend of sincere, generous and a little bit naughty. You only have to look at the way the Louvre thieves accessed a first-floor window during daylight opening hours to understand how brazen they can be when it comes to breaking the rules.

My first inkling that the French had a different relationship to safety was when I got into a taxi, aged 25.Credit:

If you’ve spent time in France, you might have noticed a few things. For starters, bicycle helmets are far less common. You might even have witnessed a bare-headed cyclist hurtling towards you at........

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