This one is going to be intellectually challenging but worth the effort: By the time you reach the end of this article, you’ll be able to read Descartes in the original. It all began with an item hot off the Associated Press wires, announcing the launch of a French tabloid with a catchy name, L’anti-Americain Primaire, referred to herein as AAP. It’s not really anti-American, it’s anti-Bush. Editorial director Frederic Royer is a freelance journalist whose earlier claim to fame almost faded from memory along with his previous venture, L’Examineur, an experiment in the publication of hoaxes. When a hoax had hop-skipped from blogs to minor radio stations to mainstream print press, the clever Mr. Royer would declare that it was just a hoax, just for fun, just to show how gullible people are.

He’s got something there. So let me explain the philosophy behind this new journalistic concept that captured the imagination of an AP correspondent in Paris, who talked it up in a compelling release that was picked up verbatim all over, until it actually seemed like news. And here we are, talking about Mr. Royer on a day when Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon sat at one and the same round table in Sharm El Sheik, when Secretary of State Rice’s sweet smile met President Chirac’s clothespin grimace, when dozens of Iraqi police recruits were explosively mass-murdered as brave citizens counted the ballots.

Mr. Royer confided in me in an exclusive interview with The New York Sun.

Anti-American? Not he! He is your savior. Unless, of course, you voted for President Bush. In which case, you hardly count, because only half the eligible voters voted, and only a bit more than half of them voted Mr. Bush. But even if you’re not one of the good guys, don’t tune out, okay? Because you are going to learn so much about French logic and French humor that even if you did vote indecently, you may be able to save your soul in the near future.

What exactly is an anti-American “primaire”? Well, one way to translate it is “anti-Americanism for dummies.” The question is, who are the dummies? Not the 10 freelance journalists who write the articles that live in the house that Mr. Royer built! They are clever anti-American Frenchmen making fun of ordinary French people who make fun of Americans in that simple ordinary way that’s so funny if you just get the joke. By the way, is Mr. Royer pro-Chirac? No. And if President Bush had won with an 80% margin like Mr. Chirac, would the remaining 20% of redeemable Americans voters be worth saving? He didn’t see what I meant by that. But he has nothing against the French people – 80% – who voted for Mr. Chirac.

I asked Mr. Royer to take a guess at the present state of Mr. Bush’s popularity. He guessed 40%. How would he interpret this figure? He said he would check the figure before interpreting it. Hold your breath to see if he’ll ever comment on this week’s rise to 57%.Why does AAP call Americans “United Statesers”? You might have guessed. Who do we think we are, plumped down in the middle of Canada and South America, calling ourselves America? Don’t expect AAP to follow the label usurped by an Indian slaying, slave-owning, war-making, empire-imposing hyperpower.

So what about “Native Americans”? That’s easy, says the editorial director of AAP: They’re the natives. Oh? And was it called America then? What does he think about Ward Churchill? Never heard of him. Hmmm. But then again, why should he know anything about a doubtful Native American who shares all of his ideas about the evil American Empire? Why should Mr. Royer be up-to-date on President Bush’s popularity ratings? Mr. Royer told me, with no uncertain pride, that he is like most French people, anti-American without a cause. Primaire, if you will. He’s hardly ever set foot in the country, and when he did, it was more of a toe than a foot, and this is what makes his tabloid so funny. Though three of his freelancers are American (and they didn’t tell him about Ward Churchill?) and two are French citizens living in America, the idea is to convey the charm of your ordinary French person holding hysterically funny opinions about United Statesers, based on…well, maybe on not much of anything?

Now we come to the lesson in logic. AAP sees itself as a service rendered to the good Americans who deserve to be saved by the comical writings of Mr. Royer and his cohorts. How? Take yourself … Can you read AAP? Even if you understood French, how could you gain access to its lifesaving qualities? Ask Google. Aside from a twopage teaser, the only way to get AAP is to subscribe. Or buy a copy at your local Parisian newsstand. Except they’re not available at the newsstand. Mr. Royer explains: Some 7,500 copies were sold almost a month ago when the second issue hit the stands; the unsold copies were returned. Meaning? Meaning that a meager percentage of the 20,000-copy printing was sold; a tiny minority of French people actually bought L’anti-Americain Primaire; this minority of 7,500 is now well-informed about the foibles of Americans, which turn out to be pretty much the foibles they were already pecking at, and thanks to L’Anti-Americain Primaire, they will rescue the poor misguided benighted Americans … who have not already been saved by Howard Dean.

A one-year subscription is available at a rate of $2.56 per month. Compare that with the price of your favorite newspaper and tell me it’s not a bargain too good to miss.

Ms. Poller is a novelist living in Paris.