Back in 1978, while a student in Paris, I passed by a McDonald's on the Boulevard St. Michel on the Left Bank.

I nearly fell over. What was that fast-food joint -- apparently one of the first in France -- doing in the hallowed Latin Quarter, within shouting distance of the Sorbonne?

In the past thirty-plus years, McDo has spread like spilled grease across the French landscape while French cafés, bistros and "restos" struggle to remain open and waistlines to stay slim.

With well more than a thousand outlets from the English Channel to the Alps to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, France is now McDonald's second-largest market in the world.

In his new book, Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the End of France, Michael Steinberger explores the reasons why. And it is not -- as much as we would love to place the entire blame at the foot of the golden arches -- -- merely McDonald's' fault.

Alas, when one culture succeeds in decimating another, it's often because there was a weakness within.

Steinberger faults in great part French laws and regulations, which impose heavy taxes on French eating establishments and forbid workers from putting in more than 35 hours a week. While not a problem for the McDonald's corporation, they place a huge burden on small, independently run restaurants.

Steinberger also blames French complacency. Long at the top of the worldwide culinary pyramid, the French saw no reason to tinker with their own cuisine. Why change when everyone wants to be just like you?

Having spent six years in Paris over three decades, I watched the French gradually get bored with their own food. I would even go so far as to argue that many of the French are bored being French. And, like human beings everywhere, when new options present themselves, they jump on them.

Not just McDonald's, of course, but cuisines from around the world. The young are especially crazy about Asian dishes and, since no dry French wines go well with chili or curry, they now drink the sweet wines of Germany.

Which means the French wine industry is also in free fall. The grapes are literally drying on the vine.

With the world's pace now greatly accelerated, the French can no longer take hours to prepare and consume a meal. I once watched my friend Pascaline painstakingly heat oil in a teaspoon over a stove-top flame to make her own mayonnaise; I doubt she bothers with that anymore.

Ironically, Paris was host to the first restaurants rapides. The word bistro is often believed to have come from the Russian word "bwistro", which means "hurry up." Russian soldiers occupying Paris during the Napoleonic Wars wanted their food fast and the name stuck.

But few French bistros today can compete with the speed and efficiency of le fast food américain.

And McDonald's is quickly beating the French at their own game.

For example, they now very cleverly -- or perversely -- serve 'les macarons glacés,' one of the most exquisite little cookies known to humankind (and brought to a high art by the gorgeous tea salon, La Duree), at their Champs-Elysées location.

Right there in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. And down the street from La Duree itself.

Along with soft drinks and milk shakes, McDonald's in France also serves wine.

My husband and I ate one of the worst meals of our life at a small restaurant on the rue Mouffetard, the oldest street in Paris. The steak was tough and -- I kid you not -- the vegetables were straight out of a can. We were the only diners there and had the distinct impression that the wait staff was laughing at us while we picked at our mushy carrots and peas.

Sadly, we might have had a better meal at McDo. And for a fraction of the price.

And it's not just restaurants that have slipped into mediocrity. A food writer for The Daily Beast recently chronicled her frustrated attempts to find decent bread and cheese in the City of Light. Even the baguette, she says, once a masterpiece of French baking, is now too dense, airy or crusty.

Fortunately, my favorite boulangerie, Poilâne, in the sixth arrondissement, is still holding up, and many such shops and restaurants have maintained their standards, but so many others just seem to have surrendered.

"Après moi, le déluge," Louis XV is believed to have said while ruling La France in the 18th century. After me, the flood.

While some speculate he was unwittingly predicting the French Revolution, perhaps he really forsaw (okay, I may be stretching things here) the eventual and inevitable demise of all that was great about his nation, his culture and his people.

It took 250 years but it looks like the flood may have arrived. Chefs in London, Tokyo and San Francisco now claim top billing for their innovative dishes and ingredients. In the meantime, the rows of Peugeots and Renaults lined up at McDo's McDrive grow longer by the day.

C'est la vie? Ou non?