BRUSH-OFF.(The Talk of the Town)

A year ago, when the French President, Jacques Chirac, declared that France would veto a United Nations resolution in favor of war against Iraq, "whatever the circumstances," he probably did not consider the potential collateral damage it might do to French bachelors overseas.

But this circumstance was of grave concern to many Manhattan-based French businessmen. And so, on March 18, 2003--the day before the United States started bombing Iraq--Pierre Battu, a textile importer with the compact proportions and purposeful intensity of a Jack Russell terrier, decided to act in self-defense. He threw a cocktail party for French expatriates and the Americans who liked them. Fifty people turned up, mostly men; the evening was such a success that he held another the next month. Battu named the party "French Tuesdays," and at the second one a lanky young banker named Georges Benoliel, fresh out of business school in Paris, showed up with a dozen young women. After a brief discussion of their mutual aims (more women), Battu invited Benoliel into the French Tuesdays junta, which included Battu and his partner in the textile business, Gilles Amsallem, who runs around snapping photographs.

Battu put up a web site so that he could post the party photos and explain his raison d'etre. It reads, "You have a particular taste for red wine, cheese, smokers, you like bubbles, play petanque, enjoy taking a few days off in Paris or Saint-Tropez, qualify yourself as a Francophile / Francophone, speak French or just enjoy to socialize the French way. . . . You have already qualified to join our happy, trendy, hip 'French Tuesdays' parties."

By this winter, the party had evolved from a small monthly cocktail hour to a biweekly all-night extravaganza that moves among various large night clubs. When the group celebrated its first anniversary last month, at a place called Marquee, a party given by Playboy for its April cover model, Rachel Hunter, was bumped to an upstairs lounge in order to make room for the Frenchmen. Lucas Labat, a party regular, spent most of the evening surrounded by American women. He had theories. "American girls are very liberated, but the American men are uptight," he said. ...