"It's adorable... but I don't think winning it will change my life much," said the journalist and novelist who already has an army of fans for books like "A French Life", a saga about the country's baby boom generation who like him were forged by the Paris student revolt of 1968.
It won the prestigious Femina prize in 2004 and was published in English three years later.
"I will be the same tomorrow as I was this morning," insisted the writer, who still lives in the beautiful house in Toulouse where he was born.
The sad, nostalgic hero of his new book, "Tous les hommes n'habitent pas le monde de la même façon" (roughly translated as "All Men Do Not Inhabit This World in the Same Way") also has roots in the southwestern French city.