So I'm trapped behind the chip dip at this soiree in Kitsilano. Planted firmly before me in high heels and a low top is this woman I barely know who is reciting her resume not that anybody asked. She lets it drop that she speaks four languages, including French, then she adds with a sniff: "Parisian French...not Quebecois. They speak horrible French in Quebec."

And I know it's uncharitable and certainly un- Christian, but my first instinct is to reach for a bowl of créme glace and dump it all over her pretentious tete.

I don't, of course - I'm a Canadian (as is she). But the atmosphere cools and I start planning my getaway, though I'm not sure why I'm suddenly feeling protective and defensive about Canada's French. God knows they don't want or need my (assume defensive position: French word incoming) - patronage.

Besides, our Canadian French confreres have been under assault from another, more unlikely source of late: France.

At a recent convention of historians and politicos in Quebec City it was revealed that, contrary to what we learned at school and what every separatiste believes in his heart, Quebec was not a tragic concession cruelly torn from the breast of France and awarded to Britain back in 1763. According to modern historians Quebec was more of an unprofitable pain in the derriere that the French couldn't wait to unload.

"We heard that we weren't conquered" says Quebec senator Serge Joyal. "The British just waited for the French to give us away. That's shocking to many people. The French didn't want us".

Such a revelation goes a long way towards explaining the sniggering and supercilious attitude the European French have long reserved for Quebec. The French, who centuries ago raised snobbery to an art form, have always been especially disdainful of the Quebecois. They regarded them as bumptious colonial rubes who dressed badly and talked funny.

Especially talked funny. 'Joual' is the name of the Montreal dialect most commonly associated with French Canadians- the word is a corruption of the word for horse - 'cheval'. In the old days, the French hid behind their fans every time a Quebecois moved his or her lips - tres drole. Now it seems the French may have to learn to laugh out of the other side of their mouths.

It's because of a movie that's taken France by storm. It's called Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis - which translates as Welcome to Ch'tisland. The movie is about a typical southern French urban snob, a postal worker, who gets sent - exiled - to the far north of France where the inhabitants are, well, hicks. They come off as stupid, backward, malingering drunkards. Ch'tis is the dialect they speak, and it's incomprehensible to outsiders - even other Frenchmen. The snob's opening line to the first Ch'tis speaker he meets: "Is there something wrong with your jaw?"

It's a feel-good movie that exploits a hackneyed theme: cultivated sophisticate from the Big City gradually learns something about the real values of life from an encounter with unvarnished sons of the soil. He and the audience come to adore and respect these loveable, honest, surprisingly canny country folk. Kind of a Gallic version of Corner Gas.

As a premise for a French movie Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis should have gone over like a bowl of poutine at the Ritz. In fact, it's a smash. More than twenty million French citizens have lined up to see the film. And they're attending not to make mock of the rustic characters on the screen, they're coming to admire them - and the funny way they talk.

Some French observers are mystified - and more than a little worried. Michel Wieviorka, a Paris sociologist, frets that the film "celebrates a France that is inward-looking, fearful of the future and lazy." He also describes the characters as 'franchouillard' - which is to say 'redneck'.

Heck, we Anglos can help him with that. No need to fret - the French have simply discovered their inner Don Cherry. If they work at it real hard, they might someday be ready for Bob and Doug McKenzie. Wonder what the French is for "Beauty, eh?"