Irish accent beats French as world's sexiest

The Irish accent has beaten its French counterpart as the world's sexiest.

Men with an Emerald Isle brogue came top in a poll of 5,000 women worldwide, while the French accent only came fourth, just ahead of Australian.

Italian was second. In third place was the Scottish burr. English was sixth and Swedish was seventh, with Spanish, Welsh and American completing the top 10.

A spokesman for www.OnePoll.com, which carried out the international survey, blamed French president Nicolas Sarkozy for the French accent's fall from grace.

"The French accent is nowhere near as popular as it used to be," he said. ''You can probably blame Nicolas Sarkozy for that, he has single-handedly changed the perception of how the world sees French men."

The sexiest accents are: 1 Irish; 2 Italian; 3 Scottish; 4 French; 5 Australian; 6 English; 7 Swedish; 8 Spanish; 9 Welsh; 10 American.