A tale of two cities: get ready for "Paris on the Potomac.".

• Author: Larson, Christina
• Position: 10 MILES SQUARE

Visitors who traditionally flock to Washington in April to admire the cherry blossoms might puzzle this spring at prominent advertisements on bus billboards and and metro brochures hawking a new marketing theme: a three-month citywide festival called "Paris on the Potomac." Museums will showcase Montmartre artists; cycle tours will appreciate French architecture along Pennsylvania Avenue; and cafes will serve crepes and cafe au laits on the National Mall.

This celebration of all things Gallic in a city where two years ago Congress banned the phrase "French fries" from its cafeteria menus might raise a few eyebrows--especially as it's coinciding with a sudden White House rush toward rapprochement with France, in part to solidify support for U.S. policies in the Middle East. Could the same Rovian puppeteers suspected of planting friendly "reporters" in press briefings and closing doors to presidential town halls on dissenters also be jingling the strings behind D.C.'s new pro-French P.R. blitz?

As it happens, tracing the festival's origins reveals less sinister forces at work. It all began one afternoon in the fall of 2003, in a cozy 4th-floor conference room in the downtown offices of the city's hospitality industry association, the Washington Convention and Tourism Corporation. Huddled around the table that day were a dozen directors and marketing gurus representing the city's premiere cultural landmarks, from the National Gallery of Art to the Shakespeare Theater to the Kennedy Center. This group, christened Washington's "cultural steering committee," had first convened at the behest of Mayor Anthony Williams in the weeks after 9/11, when fear of future attacks and locked doors at such popular sites as the White House had transformed downtown into a tourism ghost-town. The committees mission was to showcase the city's oft-overlooked cultural, attractions and lure back sightseers, with their fanny packs and disposable dollars. They had already orchestrated, in the summer of 2002, a successful citywide promotion entitled "Jacqueline Kennedy's Washington," weaving events around a Corcoran Gallery exhibit of the former first lady's enviable wardrobe, and tours of her Georgetown homes (local restaurants caught the spirit, offering such specials as cream-filled meringues shaped like pillbox hats).

At this particular monthly meeting, the committee's convener, a feisty local historian named Kathy Smith, asked the members to whip out their exhibit...