France Swoons on a Wave of Piaf Nostalgia

She was the waif-like street urchin who rose to become France's cabaret queen, belting out painful love songs as she battled her own addictions, mourned lost lovers and succumbed to an early death.

But Edith Piaf, France's biggest musical export and the face of chanson française, has sparked a lucrative bout of nostalgia as the nation hopes a new biopic will provide an international box office hit to rival the film Amélie.

The glittering epic, La Môme (after Piaf's nickname The Kid) opens in French cinemas today after launching the Berlin film festival with a standing ovation last week. It has already been sold in 35 countries, including the UK and US, where it will be named after the Piaf hit, La Vie en Rose, when it comes out in June.

But it is in France where Piaf-mania is reaching extreme proportions. EMI is forecasting record-breaking sales of soundtracks, Piaf's acquaintances have released books, a musical hits Paris this week and television specials have attracted millions of viewers. Politicians on the presidential campaign have seized on the cult of Piaf - the destitute daughter of a street acrobat who grew up in a brothel, and whose tragic lyrics and piercing voice have made France nostalgic for the postwar years.

Unlike the other film-inspired marketing craze that recently swept France, Marie Antoinette-mania, the Piaf revival has sparked no heated rows about whether she deserves to be revered. "There is only affection and tenderness for her," wrote one commentator. "France loves desperate love songs," Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former prime minister and ally of the presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, said. Piaf symbolised France's desire to return to the "real values of the people" and away from "elitism". He cited his own ruling party as an example of the Piaf ethos.

The fact that a star-studded "Piaf story" had been made by a French director initially raised eyebrows in Paris, where big-screen biopics are rare. Some warned of the danger of trying to ape a Hollywood trend for films about music legends such as the recent hits on Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, and the Bob Dylan and James Brown films currently in production.

But La Môme is already a hit with the critics. Marion Cotillard who played Piaf - shaving her hairline for the trademark high forehead and sitting in make-up for five hours to play a dying Piaf who looked 20 years older than her age - is tipped for several best actress awards. The key question is whether Piaf can reach out via celluloid to an audience beyond her traditional market of over-45s.

The American film bible Variety was confident that young cinemagoers who might not immediately appreciate Piaf's singing style would relate to the tragic saga of "hard knocks, harder knocks, drug addiction, alcohol, lost love and the needy flip side of adulation when your inner child is scruffy and wounded".