According to French Wikipedia, one of the names for Clippy in French is Trombine. Given the other user mentioned that it means "face", and given trombone is, I believe, a paper clip (my French education unfortunately did not get this far), I suspect it's used as a kind of cute pun thing.
Kind of like how "Clippy" is obviously derived from the word "paperclip", but has slightly cuter and more friendly connotations. (Except for those experienced with Clippy, who may have other connotations at this point...)