IT IS no surprise that France has only just got around to its own equivalent of Top Of The Pops. In a country where philosophy is on the national curriculum, the French have always regarded pop music as a bit of a joke.

Little wonder, then, that the most acclaimed French acts to have scaled our charts in the past few years — Air, Mr Oizo and Daft Punk — were, respectively, two boffins whose first video starred a chimpanzee called Sexy Boy; a head-nodding sock-puppet and a couple of “characters” who spent their last press campaign pretending that they’d turned into robots.

This is what happens to a country when legislation is passed limiting the amount of foreign pop music on television and radio. Everyone goes a bit nutty.

Clearly, French pop is a very different beast from the British one. In the Sixties the French charts comprised a procession of winsome young pop nymphettes such as Françoise Hardy and France Gall trilling about sharing bubblegum and playing volleyball on sandy beaches.

Serge Gainsbourg, who effectively fused a chanson sensibility with his own illicit predilections, changed all that with the saucy bedtime antics of Je T’Aime (Moi Non Plus).

That may have been the last time that he and Jane Birkin troubled the pop charts, but his influence is evident in the present wave of acclaimed French acts. Air’s Nicolas Godin even goes as far as to say, “For us, French music begins with Gainsbourg’s L’Histoire Melodie Nelson” — an adventurous song-cycle recorded in 1970.

MC Solaar, France’s top hip-hop artist, has also cited Gainsbourg as the most important figure in French pop history. His biggest hit Nouveau Western was based on a sample from Gainsbourg’s 1967 hit Bonnie And Clyde.

Away from the dance scene there’s little sign that French pop is set to make any further impression on the British charts. World music is huge in France — with Paris-based North African superstars such as Baaba Maal fêted in much the same way Bruce Springsteen might be in America.

There are signs, however, that a fresh Gallic assault may yet be made upon British ears. The Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has declared himself a champion of a new genre, Neo Realisme, and to prove it, he’s even financed an album (due out next week) which showcases the best bands in the movement. At the core of Neo Realisme is a coterie of French bands — Java, Les Pires, Les Têtes Raides — who are attempting to do for chanson what The Pogues did for Irish music.

Will they make an impact here? Probably not. But with the English charts awash with winners and losers of primetime talent shows, maybe it will not be such a bad thing.

• Peter Paphides is a music writer and columnist.

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