A French veterinary psychiatrist puts cats on the couch in new book

Even dog people must admit that cats are having a moment.

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In a year when US Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance's comment about "childless cat ladies" touched off a political firestorm, and a New York magazine article called Is My Cat A Prisoner? positioned people's pets as windows of their souls (or lack thereof), a book by a jovial Parisian veterinary psychiatrist has steadily climbed the French bestseller lists.

Recently translated and published in the US, Claude Beata's The Interpretation Of Cats puts cats on the couch - as well as their human companions.

"What do we do with cats?" Beata asked over aperitifs in a cafe not far from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. "Today, they are iconic. But yesterday, they were devils - witches' familiars. And tomorrow, maybe they will be devils again. Because we don't understand them. We just project."

He added: "Cats are not as easily understandable as dogs. Dogs are a social species. It's easy to talk with them. Cats are strangers."