Lesser women have tried and failed. Now, two of Hollywood's leading ladies are competing to be accepted by that most impenetrable breed of all: Parisians.
This week's New York has branded Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson "The White and Black Swans of Paris Celeb-Expat Living".
Both actresses have had the temerity to fall in love with Frenchmen and the audacity to move to the French capital. But there can only be one winner in the battle of the bombshells - and Portman is the clear front-runner.
The Black Swan actress had a head start by marrying Benjamin Millepied, a French dance star who is due to take over the Paris Opera Ballet this autumn, and by learning to speak French (Johansson's fiance, Romain Dauriac, par contre, is a journalist). But Portman has also remained characteristically discreet - a quintessential Parisian quality - about her integration, something Johansson would have done well to emulate. Instead, Scarlett complained to CBS's David Letterman that Parisians shove her in the street, which prompted a backlash in the media. "Une seule solution," wrote one journalist, "go home".