“But you do find perfectly shameless cleavages and radiant breasts often uncluttered by a bra.”

The bustiest waitresses, he reveals, can be found in the city centre, at the Cafe de L’Esplanade.

Luxury boutiques and chi-chi cafe terraces are the “natural habitat” of groomed, bourgeois wives – women very like President Sarkozy’s new First Lady, Carla Bruni, or Vanessa Paradis, wife of Hollywood film star Johnny Depp.

Such women are “the mother of all fantasies since the origins of literature”, says M. Colin.

For the “saucy maturity” of 40 to 60-year-olds, he recommends hanging around lingerie stores. He writes: “Here are the best examples of an agitated or ambitious sex life which refuses to lay down its weapons.”

And in what sounds more than a little seedy, he adds: “The trendy youngsters who are characterised by visible underwear and the near disappearance of the bra are found along the rue Montorgeuil.”

Feminist groups are unsurprisingly angry. A spokeswoman for the French women’s protection group SOS Femmes said: “This book is blatant male sexism which reduces women to simple objects of sexual desire.”

But M. Colin couldn’t give a flying frog’s leg. With unfathomable French logic, he says: “I oppose all those who want to restrict women like the priest, the man who pesters women and the censor.”

He stops just short of citing the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity to claim the right to ogle women is an essential part of French culture.

He says he has a “high mission” to ensure the survival of the French tradition of liberty and grace.

Feminists shouldn’t even think of burning their brassieres in protest... that’ll just give him more ideas.