According to Richard Price, the Kent-born chairman of the history department at the University of Maryland, the double kiss began migrating from France in the 1970s. It took hold a few decades later. “Once the Chunnel came into service” in 1994, he says, “you would get French people coming into London to shop at Marks & Spencer, especially when the pound was weak.” And their affectionate greeting, he suggests, slowly but surely permeated the more cosmopolitan realms of London society. “It’s a reflection of [London’s] Europeanization,” he says. Oh, how times have changed! “In my parents’ generation,” he notes, “kissing on the cheek was considered an intrusion of personal space.”
