10 of the best novels to transport you to France

From the backstreets of Paris in Perfume to sun-baked Provence in Jean de Florette, visit France through great fiction

• Share your favourite fiction set in France in the comments

I’ve written about France for The Guardian for more than a decade and have been visiting for longer: since my days as a teenage au pair and later a language student. I love it mainly for its food and wine, but also for its combative attitude to politics, its love of good living, elegant cities and variety of land- and seascapes. We can still visit it through the pages of literature. So, here are my personal top 10 novels that give une véritable saveur of the country almost nine million British people visited last year.