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The French translation of British erotic novel Fifty Shades Of Grey was only released on Wednesday, but has already become the fastest selling book in French publishing history.

The astonishing sales figures – of around 75,000 every day – come after the book was panned by French critics as “crass pseudo-porn” that reads like a Mills & Boon novel.

One high-brow reviewer even wrote: “It’s as close to literature as Whiskas cat food is to gastronomy.”

But despite the torrent of critical abuse, E.L James bestseller has now overtaken the Harry Potter novels as France’s favorite book.

French high street giant FNAC said copies of the novel had been “flying of the shelves”.

A spokesman for FNAC – which accounts for around a fifth of all book sales in France – said: “It is amazingly popular. We have never stocked a book that has sold so fast.

“We sold 15,000 copies on the day it was released. In some shops there were just none left.”

But the scathing views of critics from major newspapers and magazines have not matched the huge popularity of France’s latest publishing phenomenon.

 

Fifty Shades Of Grey has become the fastest selling book in French publishing history

Fifty Shades Of Grey has become the fastest selling book in French publishing history

 

Daily newspaper Le Figaro wrote: “It has no intellectual construction. It is Fifty Shades of Boredom.”

The paper compared the book – first released in the UK in May 2011 – to French classic erotic writing by the Marquis de Sade and Anais Nin’s The Story Of O.

It added: “Alongside them, this is soda-masochism <<lite>>, full of insignificant, consensual and clichéd content.”

Les Inrocks music magazine said: “It is exposes the cultural gulf between the Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy and the old authentic sado-masochism of the French.”

News magazine L’Express wrote: “The female character’s multiple orgasms are laughably unbelievable. This crass, pseudo porn might prove to be a massive boost to the sex toy industry, but it’s got nothing to do with good writing.

“This may be what pleases the British public, who can identify with the character Ana’s conflict between her <<conscience>> and her <<inner goddess>>, but it remains to be seen if the French will regard the book with anything more than curiosity.

“Some couples may say it has helped their sex lives by reading it, but it’s as close to literature as Whiskas cat food is to gastronomy.”

And the 20 Minutes news website added: “It’s a load of Mills & Boon-style rubbish.”

Meanwhile, the French publisher JC Lattes has already ordered 500,000 copies – one of the biggest print runs of any French publishing house in recent years.

It has also become the fastest-selling book of all time, shifting more than five million copies in the UK and 40 million around the world.

 

The “first picture” of character Christian Grey from E.L. James’s novel Fifty Shades of Grey has been created by Dr. Faye Skelton, who has used descriptions and image-generating software.

University of Central Lancashire’s Dr. Faye Skelton made the image using descriptions of how women said they imagined protagonist Christian Grey.

Dr. Faye Skelton said the composite, created with software used to make images of criminal suspects, was “a bit of fun”.

She said she hoped the image would not “intrude on anyone’s fantasies”.

The "first picture" of character Christian Grey from E.L. James's novel Fifty Shades of Grey created by Dr. Faye Skelton

The "first picture" of character Christian Grey from E.L. James's novel Fifty Shades of Grey created by Dr. Faye Skelton

The erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which recently became the fastest adult paperback novel to sell one million print copies, tells the story of the steamy relationship between billionaire businessman Christian Grey and “unworldly, innocent” literature student, Anastasia Steele.

Dr. Faye Skelton used the descriptions of 12 women given to a radio station to create the composite and said most had drawn “comparisons with famous film stars”.

“While we don’t want to intrude on anyone’s fantasies, based on a small sample of women, this is the image of Christian Grey they have in their heads when reading the novels,” she said.

“Personally, I think he’s quite handsome – although everyone’s interpretation will be different.”

She added that the image “was just a bit of fun, but it does show the quality of image we can now generate”.

The university’s psychology department has been at the forefront of facial composite technology and created advanced software which uses the selection of multiple complete faces to create an image of a person.

It has been used by police forces across the world to identify criminal suspects.