Shape France

The magazine was largely translated material and never got a foothold in the French market. It only sold 28,000 copies and didn’t get much amour from advertisers, according to the Post.

“The international market, based on the economy, is very challenging, especially in France,” a spokesperson for parent company American Media International told the Post, confirming that the current issue of Shape France will be le fin.

The closure of Shape France coincides with the departure of Sue Yein Butcher, one of the longest serving executives at AMI. Ms. Butcher, who was previously in charge of Mira, the company’s Spanish-language celebrity tabloid, spoke Spanish--not French. Quelle horreur!

Shape’s concept may have been a hard sell in France as well. An article about French Jenny Craig in The New York Times last summer outlined the difficulties of trying to import L'Américain style of fitness and exercise across the pond.

“A track coach well known in France walks a woman through some low-key exercises, like arm swings and biceps curls with water bottles for weights. There is much talk of breathing. Although gyms have proliferated in the last 10 years in France, rigorous exercise is still not considered a requirement of responsible adulthood the way it is here,” wrote The New York Times.

In the same article, chic French smoked cigarettes while expressing horror at the American concept of the snack and the self-service. With cultural differences like that, is it any wonder that Shape France will be no longer?

Well, France's new tax law is no longer just an unappealing prospect (e.g. the lawsuit to end foie gras production in New York state), but a cold reality (the recent ban in California), as Socialist President Françoise Hollande announced a new budget today, placing a 75 percent on million-euro earners. The Wall Street Journal has some details:

The budget increased the top marginal income-tax rate to 45% from 41%, and detailed plans for a special tax on incomes above €1 million ($1.29 million) a year, with 1,500 individuals paying an overall rate of 75%. They will pay on average €140,000 more in taxes next year, the government said.

In light of which, we'd like to roll out the welcome mat again, with the same set of stipulations.

Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. (Getty Images)

Call it a culture gap: The French just don't see what's wrong with bare breasts.

As you undoubtedly know by now, Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton was shot sunbathing topless by French paparazzi for the French magazine Closer. Now the royal family is making motion to file a proper lawsuit against the publication, according to a royal rep. To which the magazine has responded, "What is ze big deal?"

"These photos are not in the least shocking," Closer editor Laurence Pieau told reporters from AFP. "They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like the millions of women you see on beaches."

Maybe this editor needs to be reminded that there are no topless beaches in London, due to their chilly weather and even chillier reception of public nudity. Ms. Pieau continued:

"One shouldn't dramatize these pictures. The reaction has been a little disproportionate. It is a young couple that has just been married. They are in love. They are beautiful. She is the princess of the 21st century.

These are pictures that are full of joy. They are not degrading. Similarities have been drawn with the pictures of Harry. They are not similar. These are not degrading."

So far, the the royal family has taken quite a different stance, calling the photos "grotesque." Which actually does seem like a poor word choice, in this context.

France: get out while you still can (Celine Aussourd, flickr)

Mon Dieu! Rather than redecorating their chateaus or contemplating the new Chanel collection, the French elite must now find places to stash their cash, now that the people have gone and elected that terrible Socialist François Hollande.

The taxman cometh, reports The New York Times, and wealthy Gauls are not standing around waiting for him to take their hard-earned euros. Non! Instead, the French are rushing to spend their money on Manhattan real estate.

Seriously, things have not been this bad for the rich since François Mitterrand was elected president.

Enter broker Benoît Pous-Bertran de Balanda, the descendant of a French general who fought for the Americans. Mr. de Balanda has taken up his ancestor's mantle and is now helping the French elite win liberty and freedom for their fortunes in the promised land.

Mr. de Balanda reports that the elite are desperate to find safe havens for their euros. Hoarding real estate is, after all, preferable to paying the 75 percent taxes that Mr. Hollande is threatening to levy on any income over $1 million.

These are not Russian billionaires, mind you, but average Jean-Pauls, looking for properties between $500,000 and $5 million, according to brokers. Not the stratospherically rich for whom money means nothing, just normal rich, for whom money means everything.

“I have met a lot of French expatriates who are considering the option to stay in the U.S. for at least five years,” Mr. de Balanda told The Times. “They just want to wait, to wait and see what happens in France with taxes.”

He himself was among the French planning to wait out these dark times in the U.S.

Christophe Bourreau, a broker at Barnes International who also represents his countrymen, described the plight of one French couple who had considered buying in Cannes, but ultimately been forced to buy in Miami. Quelle Horreur!

“They feel like the new president is hunting the wealthy,” Mr. Bourreau told The Times," but ultimately been forced to buy in Miami, “and that the sooner their money is out of France the better.”

And fleeing from fortune hunting peasants is almost a national past time, "preserving the French noble family meant pulling out when the going got tough," as The Times aptly notes. Too true!

kvelsey@observer.com

Sy and Cluzet in The Intouchables.

Already a huge hit in Europe, France’s crowd-pleasing The Intouchables seems destined to repeat its success here. Written and directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, it’s the factual story of an unconventional relationship between a millionaire quadriplegic from the ritziest neighborhood in Paris and his Senegalese caregiver from the ghetto—a bond that begins as a working one but builds, through trust and care and shared experiences, into a lasting friendship that changes two unhappy lives forever. It has warmth, humor and an understated sweetness that is not to be taken for granted.

The daily manifestations of washing, changing, massaging, shaving, cleaning, spoon-feeding and lifting a paralyzed patient are so daunting that Philippe Pozzo di Borgo (played with heartbreaking patience and moment-to-moment honesty by the great French actor Francois Cluzet) is always interviewing new job applicants. Many over-qualified nurse-companions apply, but there is something intriguing, irritating and challenging about Driss (Omar Sy) that rouses Philippe’s curiosity. The man’s rebellious spirit, irreverent attitude and lack of pity are refreshing. And he more than lives up to his promise. Driss hates the job at first, refusing to change Philippe’s diapers, insulting his taste in music and generally marking time until he can go back on welfare. But the film derives its emotional impact from the surprising ways the two men overcome their differences and learn to help each other to a better level in life.

Driss is a homeless man with a criminal record for robbery and no focus or direction. He’s rude and arrogant, with his own blunt brand of pragmatism and logic. The first thing he does is steal a priceless Fabergé egg that belonged to Philippe’s beloved late wife. Philippe is a rich invalid with nothing to live for who is warned by his staff and his business advisors to be careful about granting a man of unsavory character access to his home and unlimited power over his deteriorating physical condition. Gradually, their horizons expand. So aghast at the price of a painting Philippe buys in an art gallery that he decides he can do it better himself, laughing hysterically at his first visit to the Paris Opera, acting as a makeshift therapist to Philippe’s neurotic teenage daughter, teaching his boss how to smoke a joint while making him listen to Earth, Wind and Fire, Driss exerts an influence that heals some of his boss’s emotional pain. Philippe, in turn, teaches his uneducated caregiver to appreciate Vivaldi and passes him off to the pretentious art world as an important new painter whose work is worthy of a pricey investment. Since Philippe was paralyzed from the neck down from a paragliding accident, you can’t help but feel the terror and the ultimate thrill of their bond when they share the risk of paragliding to Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.”

Eventually Driss learns compassion and responsibility while Philippe gains courage to take control of his own life and even seek romance. It’s all a bit too neatly resolved and, although it is a true story, some of the incidents are hard to swallow. For laughs, Driss stages an elaborate, life-threatening high-speed chase through the streets of Paris while Philippe fakes having an epileptic seizure to get a police escort to the hospital emergency entrance. Then when the cops leave, they drive away, pleased with their mischief. I had a rough time joining in the fun myself. Issues of class and racial tension pop up only in the underprivileged world Driss comes from. Philippe’s upper-class milieu seems to take everything in stride—suspicious at first because a black man from the streets given full reign in a mansion filled with treasures is a worrisome thing. But Driss wins over every white man in sight, especially when he shows off his hip-hop skills, and before it ends, he has total control of the house and everyone in it. A bit of a credulity stretch there, not to mention the fact that when Driss buys his first suit, Philippe’s secretary says he looks like Barack Obama. Sometimes the writing dispenses a condescension the filmmakers might not even be aware of. Still, the film has a life-affirming resistance to sloppy sentimentality that is bracing. And the acting is dynamic. For obvious reasons, Mr. Sy has all of the movement and action, and he’s a lively, colorful counterpart, but the wheelchair-bound Mr. Cluzet is the revelation. His expressions reveal myriad emotions from a motionless face that tell volumes about what he is thinking, feeling and sharing from within.

The Intouchables serves up a tasty abundance of charm, warmth and humanity that makes its popularity in Europe understandable. It’s the kind of feel-good movie that turns up as rarely as a winning lottery ticket.

rreed@observer.com

THE INTOUCHABLEs

Running Time 112 minutes

Written and Directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Starring François Cluzet, Omar Sy and Anne Le Ny

3/4

So long, Mr. Sarkozy.

François Hollande beat Nicolas Sarkozy to become the 2nd Socialist French president Sunday night. Mr. Hollande garnered nearly 52% of the vote compared to Mr. Sarkozy's 48%. Mr. Hollande, who follows in the footsteps of the previous Socialist who led France for most of the 1980s, François Mitterrand, declared himself in a victorious speech "the president of the youth of France." CBS reports Mr. Hollande's platform targeted the austerity measures so hated by much of Europe. In a speech Mr. Hollande vowed to increase production, deficit reduction and preservation of equal access to public services.

President Barack Obama has reached out to Mr. Hollande after his win and has invited the president-elect to visit the White House.

Political changes in Greece were perhaps more overtly ominous, as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party achieved a firm foothold in the Greek parliament. Golden Dawn's leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, seemed to speak directly to Greeks angry about that country's severe financial situation and the related social unrest:

"The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland," Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos told a news conference at an Athens hotel, flanked by menacing shaven-headed young men.

"We are coming," the 55-year-old said as supporters threw firecrackers outside.

Mr. Michaloliakos also promised that Greece was 'just the beginning' and  quoted Julius Caesar for good measure, ominously quoting Caesar's famous "I came, I saw, I conquered."

A dream on a hill. (Domus)

Mr. Piano with his clients. (Arch Record)

Since the beginning, there was a certain amount of awe at Michael Kimmelman’s rejection of the boldface designers and celebrity architects that make up the world of starchitecture. There was little sign of the flash and panache that had defined architecture criticism in the pages of The Times for many moons. In fact things were quite gritty, even grim, if uplifting in their earnest and realism. By and large, the city(s) and profession has been better off for Mr. Kimmelman’s critical eye.

Still, there has been a clamoring in many quarters for more. At times it felt like Mr. Kimmelman was ignoring certain notable projects worthy of, even demanding notice. There have been but a dozen newsworthy developments in New York alone, from the Signature Theater to Brooklyn Bridge Park. What did Mr. Kimmelman—really, what did The Times, what did the paper of record, the voice of god--think of these important projects? With the exception of the divisive NYU expansion, to which Mr. Kimmelman had an ingenious (and thus far ignored) solution, we still do not know.

But now, at least, he has graced us, after seven months on the job, with his thoughts on one of the world’s most renowned architects. Well, two of them actually, Renzo Piano’s thoughtful-if-controversial addition to LeCorbusier’s chapel of Notre Dame du Haut. The result is a religious experience.

A few minor acoustic problems with the nuns’ concrete quarters aside, Mr. Piano and his team (Paul Vincent was the partner in charge at Renzo Piano Building Workshop) have created remarkably light and peaceful spaces that are virtually invisible from the chapel and gracefully connected to nature. Competing with Le Corbusier’s masterwork would have been a fool’s game and an affront, Mr. Piano clearly realized; spoiling it, a cinch. Doing neither, the additions insert new life onto the hill, and in the process remove a despised 1960s gatehouse that had obscured sight of the chapel from the town below.

Humility is a virtue. That’s the obvious lesson, but doing anything, even constructing a few self-effacing buildings at Ronchamp, is a big deal. Mr. Piano solved the riddle of adding to a site without appearing conspicuously to do so by burrowing into the brow of the hill, below the chapel, and inserting the convent and visitors’ center into the cuts, half buried, with zinc-and-glass facades to let in light. He placed the visitors’ center beside the old pilgrims’ path, which winds through woods from the valley all the way up the hill, and adjacent to a parking lot, which has been usefully trimmed.

A fire was crackling in the fireplace at the center when I stopped by to browse through the bookshop. A ramp led from there onto the dirt path rising to the chapel. Behind the opposite end of the visitors’ center, set apart by a tiny gate, the convent wrapped several hundred feet farther around the slope.

A fire was crackling in the fireplace!

Perhaps this is what is so compelling about Mr. Kimmelman. Even when he is considering famous objet d'architecture, it is still in terms of their humanity. He cares about the little things and little people, how a building is lived and experience, not What It Means (unless we're talking about what it means for humanity, and particularly for the city in which said building is found).

Notice that he talks to all the nuns, shares their experiences, as he recently did in a Parisian affordable housing complex. He is as much a reporter and an anthropologist as an architecture critic. He even goes so far as to name-check the partner in charge of the project and the landscape architect, a sharing of the spotlight that would have been unthinkable in the past.

Compare this to Mr. Kimmelman's predecessor and, say, his review of the CCTV Building, "the greatest building of this century" in Nicolai Ouroussoff's estimation:

Yet for all that, the CCTV headquarters may be the greatest work of architecture built in this century. Mr. Koolhaas, of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, has always been interested in making buildings that expose the conflicting energies at work in society, and the CCTV building is the ultimate expression of that aim, beginning with the slippery symbolism of its exterior. At moments monumental and combative, at others strangely elusive, almost retiring, it is one of the most beguiling and powerful works I’ve seen in a lifetime of looking at architecture.

What grabs the imagination as much as anything is the vision the building offers of this particular period in history. Mr. Koolhaas has created an eloquent architectural statement about China’s headlong race into the future and, more generally, life in the developed world at the beginning of the 21st century. It captures our era much as the great works of the early Modernists did theirs.

These are Big Ideas for Big Buildings. But you cannot inhabit an idea or a movement or a gesture. This is something Mr. Kimmelman seems to grasp that few others do.

One of each, please.

Vive le dessert! Right now, if you head to Madison Avenue between 71st and 72nd, you can treat yourself to some of the most celebrated macaroons in the world. Maison Laduree, the French pastry house credited with inventing the double-decked version of the confection, opened its first New York location at 9:00 a.m. today.

What are you doing right now, then? Are you not donning a beret and heading to the Upper East Side? What's wrong with you? It's the end of the summer, remember. Might as well indulge in a nice dessert. Plus! They're a favorite of Blair Waldorf's, so what are you waiting for.

When news of the stateside branch first broke, Lx World shared some tidbits about the interior.

The boutique is broken up into two distinct areas. One room is for sales and decorated with neoclassical touches such as paintings, Barbedienne lamps and plaster medallions featuring cameos. The second room is decorated in refined furniture including antique chairs upholstered in 19th century fabrics and is reserved for conversation and order taking.

Today just got a little bit sweeter.

Thompson.

“Let me just say this: I don’t seek out the high-profile cases, but any lawyer who would tell you they don’t want a high-profile case wouldn’t be telling you the truth,” said Kenneth Thompson. “If you look at my background, yes, I’ve done some high-profile cases, but I’m not a high-profile guy.” He was sitting behind his desk in the sleek law offices of his firm, Thompson Wigdor, which currently represents Nafissatou Diallo, the victim of an alleged sexual assault at the hands of ex-I.M.F. chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

A month earlier, however, at an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Manhattan Supreme courthouse, a high-profile guy is exactly what Mr. Thompson looked like. He spoke in the cadence of a seasoned trial attorney as he described the alleged events of May 14. In graphic detail, he narrated the account of the assault Ms. Diallo alleges to have suffered at the hands of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in room 2806 of the Midtown Sofitel.

“She was told no one was inside that room,” Mr. Thompson intoned, “and she went into that room believing that no one was inside that room. And then Dominique Strauss-Kahn came running out of one of those rooms, naked, towards her. And he grabbed her breasts first and started to attack her. He then grabbed her vagina with so much force that he hurt her. He grabbed her vagina with so much force that he bruised her vagina. When she went to the hospital later that day, the nurses who examined her saw the bruises on her vagina that were caused by Dominique Strauss’s hand …

“We believe that the district attorney is laying the foundation to dismiss this case, anyone can see that,” he added with finality. “We don’t have confidence that they are ever going to put Dominque Strauss-Kahn on trial.”

Repeating points for emphasis, and stopping to emphasize to reporters “and this is important,” he shaped the sordid story. It was uncomfortable to hear—no doubt his intention. By the 10-minute mark, Mr. Thompson was really hitting his stride with a full-blown jeremiad on abuse of power. He was the heir to a tradition of very public lawyers, men like Johnnie Cochrane and Sanford Rubenstein, who seem to materialize any time a case—particularly a racially charged case—hits the front page.

Despite his claim to the contrary, Mr. Thompson seems particularly adept at having high-profile clients find him. In recent years, he has represented Sandra Guzman, a former editor at The New York Post who sued the paper for wrongful termination, alleging discrimination; Sherr-una Booker, the woman who accused an aide of Gov. David Paterson of domestic abuse; victims of the midtown steampipe explosion; families of the victims of the 2008 Upper East Side crane collapse; and state Democrats named in last year’s Aqueduct scandal. But the D.S.K. case is Mr. Thompson’s breakout moment.

To say that Mr. Thompson was trying the case in the press would not be strictly accurate. He was not technically a litigant in the case. But what he was clearly doing was trying to get the case to trial, using the press. In his mind, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance was on the verge of dropping the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, and Mr. Thompson was using one of the few tools left at his disposal to strong-arm Mr. Vance into proceeding with the prosecution. “The district attorney has an obligation to stand up for this rape victim,” Mr. Thompson insisted.

The D.A.’s office was frustrated with the move. “It became clear that his motivation was not doing what he could to help prosecutors build a criminal case,” said a source close to the matter. “If anything, he seemed determined to work against it. Publicly promoting his own agenda vastly overshadowed advocating for his client.”

The offices of Thompson Wigdor more closely resemble a digital ad agency than a law firm. The space, designed by the small Williamsburg architectural firm Studio Tractor, is all clean lines and Modernist aesthetics. Mr. Thompson’s office is devoid of the usual legal paraphernalia—shelves of law books, for instance—usually associated with a lawyer’s office.

With his large carriage and expressive face, Mr. Thompson, is a man of considerable presence. He recounted his life story. which at times had the ring of an introduction at a dinner in his honor. “You’re looking at some one who was born and raised in the city,” he told The Observer. “I’m as New York as they come.”

Born in Harlem, he was brought up in Co-op City by a single mother who worked as an N.Y.P.D. patrol officer (an assignment made possible by a class action suit filed by female officers, who had until then been relegated to desk duty in the department). He produced a copy of I Can Be Anything, a sort of self-help career book from the ’70s. A paperclip-marked page has a picture of his mother in uniform, smiling proudly for the camera.

He did reasonably well at John Jay college, and excelled at N.Y.U. law, where he met Ron Noble, then an evidence professor, but now the head of Interpol, based in Lyon, France. When he was tapped to head the federal investigation of the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Mr. Noble choose the young Mr. Thompson to join him in D.C. “It was clear to me that he was going to have a distinguished career in the courtroom and that he was going to be on the side of justice,” Mr. Noble told The Observer.

“He allowed me to write a section of the report,” recalled Mr. Thompson, “which was a big deal. And since the head of the Secret Service reported to him, I was able to go to the White House on occasion, and that was a big deal.” He emphasizes this last phrase in such a way that conveys that the privilege was a big deal to him, but also a big deal.

Then came the Abner Louima case. By 1997, Mr. Thompson had done three years as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York (after having turned down a job in the Manhattan D.A.’s office, ironically.) “I was at my desk late one night, and I knew the guy who had the case from the beginning. I went to law school with him,” Mr. Thompson recalled. “[He] called me up and told me he had a client who was sodomized by the police, and I’m like, ‘Yeah right, okay, I’ll talk to you later.’ He said, ‘No I’m serious, I want you to set up a meeting with your boss.’ And so, weeks later, the Louima case was all in the papers.”

Mr. Thompson, the most junior member of the prosectution team—which included Alan Vinegrad and Loretta Lynch, both of whom would go on to become the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District—was chosen to give the opening statement. “They made a decision to give it to me. I didn’t lobby for it, didn’t expect it,” he said, “but I knew it was going to be the most important assignment I’ve ever had. And when I walked to the court house that day, I was with my fiancée, who is now my wife, there were 20 news vans outside in Cadman Plaza. It was very intimidating, but I went in and gave that opening statement.”

Mr. Thompson’s address to the jury was plainspoken, graphic and meant to inspire discomfort (not unlike his courthouse-steps account of the Strauss-Kahn case).

“Justin Volpe and Charles Schwarz began to inflict their own special brand of punishment,” he recounted to the jury, “their own special brand of brutality, their own special brand of torture. Justin Volpe pushed Mr. Louima down to the floor of the bathroom and Abner Louima’s face ended up next to a filthy toilet bowl. There was Abner Louima, lying there, handcuffed behind his back, pants down to his knees.” And it only got more gut-wrenching from there.

As Mr. Thompson’s own website points out, no less than Jimmy Breslin reported that he “delivered an opening statement that will be remembered.”

“Zach Carter [the U.S. attorney at the time] had hundreds of prosecutors. Why did they choose me?” Mr. Thompson asked himself aloud. “I think they knew that when I speak,” he answered, “I speak in an earnest way to the jury. I don’t talk over jurors, I talk to them, as if we’re all stuck on the 5 train. I say, ‘The guy got out the car, and he punched the guy right in his face.’ I talk to them like that. I don’t go, ‘The guy exited the vehicle and the assailant perpetrated … ’ I don’t talk like that. I am me.”

The Louima case was a watershed moment for Mr. Thompson, a high- profile case in which he not only stood quite clearly on the side of justice, but also one in which he, and the other members of the prosecution, won. “That Louima case to me was the case that really shaped me as a trial lawyer,” he said. “I knew at that point I could try a big case. I had done the trial with these great prosecutors and I held my own. “

But it wasn’t only when he found his legs as a big time trial attorney, but also where he made his first forays into dealing with the press. By his own admission, he took to it gamely. “It was the first time I’d ever spoken to the press,” he remembered, though it’s hard to imagine there was a time before he spoke to the press. “You see that picture right there,” he gestured toward the back wall of his office. “Zach Carter spoke, and then a reporter said, does anyone else have anything to say, and I said, ‘Yeah I do.’ I said, ‘If you’re looking for a hero, look no further than Abner Louima,’ and I made some other comments. Pretty audacious, but I felt that that needed to be said.”

After the Diallo case, Mr. Thompson made the not-unusual move to private practice, joining the large corporate firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius as an employment-discrimination attorney. (“My wife said, ‘We gotta make some money.’”), but after several years, he left there, along with fellow attorneys Douglas Wigdor and Scott Gilly, to form the independent firm Thompson, Wigdor & Gilly.

Over the years, Mr. Thompson’s cases got bigger, and his skills both in the courtroom and in the press seemed to have kept pace.

“He connects with juries,” said a former Thompson Wigdor partner, Andrew Goodstadt. “He connects with members of the media. I mean, you saw him standing out in front of the court house on D.S.K. I mean for a 35-minute uninterrupted CNN interview where you use the word vagina 20 times in four minutes.”

“He is certainly gifted in the way he expresses himself in court,” said one seasoned litigator who has opposed Mr. Thompson in court, “but I think that the handling of the case ... there’s certainly things that he does—and I’ve seen it with my own eyes—where it is very much in a gray area. And there are hard-and-fast ethical rules, and he pushes the envelope. And there’ve been instances where I’ve seen judges’ eyes go up, because he pushes the envelope so far that it was clear that he crossed the line.”

In fact, earlier this year, Thompson Wigdor was sanctioned by a Manhattan judge for failing to disclose facts to opposing counsel, which resulted in the departure of named partner Scott Gilly.

“I think the entire Thompson Wigdor model,” said Mr. Goodstadt, “is not as not always as chummy with opposing council as some lawyers are. But they do it all in the interest of their own clients.”

“I think it’s more so there’s tremendous financial gain. There’s tremendous ego wrapped up in it,”  the seasoned litigator said. “I guess you’ve got to litigate against him once, and then you just realize he’s so full of shit.”

Still, both Mr. Thompson’s skill and aspirations may lie as much beyond the legal realm as within it.  As attorney for Sherr-una Booker, a client he took on virtually pro bono, Mr. Thompson was less a legal resource than a trusted adviser and spokesperson, dealing with the press and managing the message. I didn’t feel like I could trust many people,” Ms. Booker told The Observer. “People were just hounding me, on top of me, and just all over me … I felt confident and secure, and as soon as he stepped in, Ken understood how to deal with the media. He had a rapport.”

Mr. Thompson’s standing in the black community has also been ascendant. He is a member of the Christian Cultural Center, a hugely influential, predominantly black megachurch in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn. With a congregation of more than 30,000 members, it is not a bad place for an ambitious lawyer to get to know the borough’s power base. It was there that Ms. Diallo first appeared in public, at a July 28 press conference.

“Ken has been with us for about 10 years,” said the church’s pastor and CEO, A.R. Bernard. “He and his family became part of the ministry when he really began to get high-profile cases. I remember that Louima case. We sat and talked, and I spoke to him as a mentor, and that really began a much closer relationship than pastor and casual parishioner.

“In a large congregation such as ours, many of those cases came as a result,” added Rev. Bernard. “You take the case with the steam pipe explosion, right? Regular family of our church. You take another case with Macy’s,” he said referring to a class action suit filed by Mr. Thompson’s firm against the department store chain, which also came to Mr. Thompson through the church. Democratic State Senator John Sampson is also a congregant.

“I will say that we’ve discussed it,” said Rev. Bernard, when asked about Mr. Thompson’s political prospects. “That’s as far as I’ll go.” According to Rev. Bernard,  Mr. Thompson “keeps a small circle of relationships, purposely. And he has to, especially with the aspirations that he has going forward in terms of serving people.”

“I think its just kind of assumed,” Mr. Goodstadt added.

For his part, Mr. Thompson denies any immediate political ambitions. “Down the road, maybe, when I’m 60,” he said. “I got small kids, I’ve got a brownstone in Brooklyn.”

I’m a lawyer,” he added emphatically.

In the meantime, Mr. Thompson, on behalf of Ms. Diallo, has filed a civil suit in Bronx Supreme Court, seeking unspecified damages from Dominique Strauss-Kahn. “I look forward to trying this case,” said Mr. Thompson, in trial lawyer mode once again. “I really do. I look forward to standing in front of a jury describing how a hard-working woman who came here from Africa because of the promise of America, who never had any issues for three years at that hotel walked into that room after she was told no one was in there and was violently attacked … I looked forward to telling that to a jury, because one thing I have is that faith in the jury system.”

bgallagher@observer.com

But D.S.K. has quickly replaced J.F.K. as the top-of-mind libidinous politician with impulse-control problems. Even more significant, he's replaced the Famous American President accused of sexual relations with an intern.

Yet even there lies a striking contrast: Americans did not come screaming to the defense of President Clinton--a suspected womanizer--when he was accused of infidelity. But the French convention is that Mr. Strauss-Kahn--also a suspected womanizer--must be the victim of a conspiracy. So, what is it about the French?

The D.S.K. scandal has reinforced cultural differences between America and France in the most striking instance since that unfortunate period when French fries somehow became freedom fries in more conservative parts of the country. Yet, the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn--currently awaiting trial under a Lindsay Lohanesque house arrest in Manhattan, on a $1 million bail and a $5 million bond--are fundamentally serious and have highlighted clashes, not just between Americans and the French, but also between New Yorkers and Parisians of both nationalities. It would seem the two cities and their denizens have much in common, as liberal bastions of the mostly progressive. Yet, in recent weeks, the lines between them have become sharper.

In France, many are quick to suggest a conspiracy is afoot. A widely circulated CSA Institute poll found 57 percent of French respondents believing Mr. Strauss-Kahn was "the victim of a plot," the number rising to 70 percent when asked of France's liberal contingent, even after numerous interviews with women who had been aggressively pursued for sex by the accused in previous encounters.

"I seem to be in tune with what many people feel here," Mr. Gross--a former New Yorker--admits, expounding: "It's kind of a paranoid sense that there had to have been some sort of set-up. Right when he was on this rise, and week after week you are reading about how high he was in the [presidential] polls, and we're waiting for his official declaration, and talking about the first Jewish president in a long time, it seemed like the timing was just ... incredible." On the matter of the infamous "perp walk"--a continued point of soreness for French media outlets--he shares what's emerging in France as a common perspective:

"Maybe I've been here too long or something," he said, "but it seemed shocking to me that it was even constitutional. Seems like an abuse of the prosecution's power. Because we have this principle of innocent until proven guilty, right?"

Infamous French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy is in tune with the juicer, taking to publications ranging from Der Spiegel to The Daily Beast, defending "my friend" and criticizing an "American judge ... delivering [Strauss-Kahn] to the crowd of photo hounds," then characterizing American coverage as "drunk on salacious gossip and driven by who-knows-what obscure vengeance," concluding that he's disturbed by the "accusatory" nature of our judicial system.

Yet, even forgetting his friendship with the accused, Mr. Lévy's France is the same country where tabloid reporters once so aggressively perused Diana of Wales that she died in a car crash as French paparazzi continued to snap away at her. Tina Brown, The Daily Beast's executive editor, was Diana's biographer, and the site itself is known for occasionally capitalizing on sensational news events (to put it mildly).

Which is not to say that les Americains are never salacious. Locally, the tabloid dailies are lined with purple prose alluding to the former I.M.F. chief's hypersexualized nature: "LE PERV," the New York Daily News used as a header, referring to the "sex-crazed ... French big" who "can bid au revoir" to his career after continuing in his "skirt-chasing" ways. The New York Post was far less kind, describing him as a "testosterone-charged ... jet-setting moneyman" who is a "sleazeball," "randy," "Pepé Le Pew-like" and "un animal." Even The New York Times characterized the allegations against him as "tawdry." Most of the American coverage has--however subtle, or not--equivocated the French with their casual attitudes toward sex. At the very least, much of the coverage has erred on the side of a vague presumption of guilt, based on Mr. Strauss-Kahn's notorious past.

But are we really that buttoned up compared to our French counterparts? The chef of New York City's French seafood mecca Le Bernardin, Eric Ripert, argues differently. Growing up, he saw America as a place with far more casual attitudes than his homeland.

"In France, we see America as a very free, relaxed country about sex. Kids in college in America are actually much more wild than the kids in Europe, that's for sure," he says. "When I was growing up there were stupid movies about college kids growing up, and I was like, wow, over there, it's really wild."

Mr. Ripert took objection with American characterizations of French attitudes, noting the media as far less conspiratorial than Americans are being led to believe. "I don't think the legitimate French media are promoting this kind of behavior." Reiterating the need for a fair trial, Mr. Ripert noted: "Even if he was set up, the guy didn't do the right thing," referring to recent evidence that Mr. Strauss-Kahn did in fact have sexual relations with a maid at the Sofitel Hotel. "He did something that was not right. Even if he got set up, he's not supposed to cheat on his wife. It's a scandal, obviously, and it reflects poorly on French people and on France. They believe that he did what he did, which we know. They're not happy about it."

Julien Farel, a French-born hairstylist and proprietor of Midtown East's celebrity-frequented Julien Farel Salon, also sees from a perspective contrary to that being propagated by those in France: "I think Dominique Strauss-Kahn should be treated as any other sex offender," Mr. Farel explained via e-mail, calling conspiratorial cries "absurd." "He has a reputation as a 'player,'" said Mr. Farel. "He has ruined his reputation with Americans, who have lost all respect for him as a man and as a professional. [They] certainly won't stand for it and neither will I!"

Won't they?

"I think there's a pride in France that [sex lives and politics] are unrelated," Mr. Gross argues, "that your being qualified to be an elected official has nothing to do with your relationship with your wife, whether you're faithful or not. All of that seems like silly, Hollywood, phony American politics."

French laws are stridently in favor of the accused when it comes to sexual harassment; Americans are encouraged to come forward with anything suspicious, especially when it involves an abuse of power. When asked about policies with his own employees, Mr. Gross agreed that sexual harassment in the workplace was likely a more touchy subject in France than it is in America, due conversely to relaxed norms about what's passable.

Mr. Ripert admits of France that "power can be abused, in the workplace" admitting a preference for "the American rules, fair laws. I don't think anyone who's being sexually abused would be able to live with that. In the workplace? Someone who's harassed by his boss or his supervisor? It's terrible," pausing, and then: "In any culture, it's unacceptable."

Some are flexible on that count. In the soon-to-be-released La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life, Elaine Sciolino, a correspondent and former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, notes: "Sexuality always lies at the bottom of the toolbox; in everyday life, in business, and even in politics. For the French, this is part of the frisson of life." She later writes: "The French still imbue everything they do with a deep affection for sensuality, subtlety, mystery, and play. Even as their traditional influence in the world shrinks, they soldier on ... [Seduction] is more than game; it is an essential strategy for France's survival as a country of influence."

Ms. Sciolino lives in Paris, of course. According to Wikipedia, she was born in Buffalo, N.Y.

fkamer@observer.com | On Twitter