These two observations by American journalists get what I’m talking about:

Wall Street Journal: “The French are legendary for nonchalance toward the sexual appetites of their politicians, and they sniffed at Americans who disapproved of Bill Clinton when he lied under oath about sex. But we doubt even the French will be blasé about assaulting a hotel chamber maid.”

Michelle Goldberg in The Daily Beast: “There has got to be a better way to deal with the messy confluence of sex and politics. It shouldn’t be complicated: sexual peccadilloes should be private, but sexual violence and coercion should not. Somehow, though, we can hardly ever get it right. And neither, it seems, can the French.”