Voulez-vous parler avec moi? My midlife French exchange in Paris

Language exchange holidays are wasted on the young. I had a great time with my host – sans youthful embarrassment about my accent – and more adults are doing the same

On the terrace of a brasserie on Rue Cler, a chic Parisian market street, I’m chatting over a tongue-lubricating glass of Sancerre with Sébastien de Lavalette, 33, a French travel company head and my language exchange partner.

Sébastien compliments my French accent, or at least I think he does: “You don’t have that mouth-full-of-bread accent that many British people have”, as I order in my middle-of-the-road restaurant French. Sébastien, who was raised in Paris but whose family hails from Périgord, reminisces about his teenage foreign language exchanges in Spain.