Mon Dieu! The French are different from us stalwart Americans. They eat more cheese, drink more red wine, and spend their free time pursuing strenuous extramarital indiscretions — cellulite-free romps replete with the kinds of silky undergarments seen in the TV show “Mad Men.’’
Where do they get the stamina?
But times are a-changing, even in France. From out of the decadent swampland comes the country’s plain, bespectacled and deeply unpopular Socialist President François Hollande. He sparked an American-style media maelstrom this month after a French magazine outed him as more than just a lefty leader — but a bona-fide sleazebag.
Photographs were published in Closer mag of a man said to be Hollande, wearing a black helmet and riding a scooter to a secret love nest shared with lovely actress Julie Gayet. This being France, Gayet is a married mother of two.
A bodyguard even reportedly delivered breakfast croissants to the illicit pair. Very civilized.
The middle-aged night move — Hollande is 59 to Gayet’s 41 — was complicated by the ticklish fact that Hollande was ensconced in a relationship with divorced journalist Valérie Trierweiler, 48, the woman for whom he left his previous girlfriend, the mother of his four children, in 2007.
Though the prez was never legally wed to Trierweiler, she had the status of first gal pal. (Think of Gov. Cuomo and his live-in squeeze, TV chef Sandra Lee.) Only, Trierweiler commanded a five-member staff.
And suddenly, the insanely sexist and libertine French were confronted with — quelle horreur! — a love triangle. Should the citizenry ignore le scandale du jour? Or obsess, gossip and moralize over it, as Americans did over the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair?
“We’re tired of being a running joke, Europe’s version of ‘Sex and the City,’ ” a female French pal who lives in New York told me.
“French men are pigs is the bottom line.’’
In a nation where fidelity is a mere suggestion — a Pew Research Poll last year found that only 47 percent of French respondents considered cheating on one’s spouse “morally unacceptable,’’ compared with 84 percent of Americans — Trierweiler took the news of Hollande’s faithlessness hard. She checked into a hospital for a week after taking “one pill too many,’’ a friend told The Sunday Times of London. She felt like she was hit by a high-speed train, another pal wrote in Le Parisien newspaper. She was terrified she’d become homeless, reported Paris Match, the magazine for which Trierweiler writes a column, if Hollande picked Gayet, which evidently he did.
Last weekend, Hollande was “in negotiations, including legal ones,’’ for a split with Trierweiler, Britain’s Telegraph reported. Now the world is watching to see if man-stealer Gayet accompanies Hollande to Washington next month for a state dinner with President Obama.
In the midst of this soap opera, something epic happened.
The French said “non’’ to l’affaire Hollande.
“How could François Holland land himself in such a mess?’’ posed France’s serious newspaper, Le Monde. “How could he behave with such insouciance, such frivolity, such imprudence? It beggars belief.’’
With the world watching and Trierweiler suffering, four journalists asked Hollande actual questions about the sexual fracas at a press conference last week in Paris’ Elysée Palace. It may have been a first in France.
Alain Barluet of Le Figaro asked if France still had a first lady.
Hollande answered that he was “totally outraged’’ by the violation of his private life.
But can a public figure ever expect privacy?
French feminists (they exist) mobilized after the 2011 arrest in New York of married Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn on a charge of sexual assault against a hotel maid.
Strauss-Kahn was cleared because of questions about the victim’s credibility. Later, he was alleged to have engaged in sex parties with hookers in France, and he was charged last year with aggravated pimping.
Yet blogs like Vie de Meuf — “a chick’s life’’ — vented fury over France’s sexually entitled men.
Hollande’s private life is a public matter. We’re all Americans now.
Scarlett a proud star of David
Here’s another reason to love curvy actress Scarlett Johansson. The Jewish-born “Lost in Translation’’ star, twice named Esquire magazine’s Sexiest Woman Alive, is standing up for Israel.
Scarlett is taping a commercial set to air during next month’s Super Bowl for Israeli-made drink-carbonator SodaStream, wrote Benny Avni in The Post. This, after singers from Stevie Wonder to Brit Elvis Costello caved to political correctness and canceled shows in Israel to protest perceived injustices against occupied Palestinians. (Singers Justin Bieber, Neil Young and Justin Timberlake get props for agreeing to play in Tel Aviv this summer.)
Although SodaStream employs West Bank Palestinians at the same salaries and conditions as Israeli workers, its products have been targeted for a ban by loopy members of the Park Slope Food Co-op. The move failed.
I nominate Scarlett for the title of Sexiest Woman of All Time.
Grown-up crybabies
How did the human race make it this far?
Couples who don’t have kids enjoy better relationships than those who produce rug rats, a survey by the UK’s Open University has found. And in the new book “All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting,’’ author Jennifer Senior takes a crack at explaining middle-class problems, such as why mothers in one survey ranked doing housework above caring for children as a favorite activity.
Today’s self-involved parents have enough time to take surveys (or write books about taking surveys).
If children threaten to cramp your style, don’t have them.
Weiner ‘wises’ again
It looks as if Anthony Weiner has a job! The ex-congressman and failed mayoral contender, who compulsively sexted pics of his wiener to random babes, was offered a gig on the “Wiseguys” political segment of cable-TV news channel NY1, The Post’s Cindy Adams reported. The gig pays just a few hundred bucks a show, but it should help support the pervert who used the online handle Carlos Danger to woo budding porn star Sydney Leathers. Weiner and suffering wife Huma Abedin are looking to downsize from their $12,000-a month Manhattan rental and move into an $8,000-a-month pad, Page Six reported.
I just hope there’s no TV near Weiner’s 2-year-old son, Jordan.
Tax-to-max Bill
Mayor de Blasio really likes taxes. Even after Gov. Cuomo proposed using state money to pay for pre-kindergarten classes across New York state, Hizzoner is stubbornly vowing to pick the pockets of city dwellers who earn $500,000 a year or more. Give it up, mayor.
If punishing taxes drive the rich from the city, who will be left to pay for snow removal?