In "Historically Yours", Stéphane Bern always has the last word and tells us the story of a phrase or expression.

Friday, he explains to us the origins of the "French kiss".

To understand why France is linked to this kiss with the tongue, we have to go back to the 18th and 19th century.

Why does the expression "French kiss" refer to France rather than to another country?

A priori, difficult to say.

However, Americans have indeed associated this way of kissing with the language with our country

.

Even if the practice already existed before.

To understand, you have to go back to the 18th and 19th centuries.

This is what

Stéphane Bern

explained on 

Friday in "Historically yours" on Europe 1.

>> Find the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern in replay and podcast here

A fiery kiss ultimately not so French

It was only in 2014 that the

F

rench kiss

 appeared in the dictionary

Le Petit Robert

. This languid kiss is defined by the fact of "kissing with the tongue", of "galloping". A galoche is also a shoe with a leather upper and a wooden sole that is worn over slippers. At the time, "the galochier" was the seller of this shoe and "galosher" meant making noise while walking in these shoes. It is true that some hugs are louder than others ...

As for the

F

rench kiss

, Americans are convinced that the practice is a French invention.

Indeed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, transatlantic mobility developed.

The reputation of the French too.

It must be said that American citizens who make the trip to France are rather well-off, which favors reconciliation.

Many have also long evolved in a Puritan religion where connections of this type were not familiar.

Brought back from India by Alexander the Great

For these Americans, "to kiss" meant "to marry." But when they came back from France, they were saying all the time: "When you are in France, let the women kiss you." It was from this moment that the expression "get a French kiss" was born. In England, French kiss has even become a verb. We can say "I french kiss her", which therefore means "I kiss her [with the tongue]".

But the French should actually stay modest, because this type of kiss is not really theirs. He was already mentioned in the collection of sexual positions written 500 years BC, the Kamasutra. It was one of the most famous figures of Antiquity, Alexander the Great, who brought this practice back with him to the Mediterranean world, after having taken possession of India. Then it was finally the Romans who eventually launched this fashion, first in Africa and Asia.