It was all so cozy when they gave us the Statue of Liberty and we helped them fight a war or two.

We loved the French for their classic sense of style and delicate sauces. They admired Americans for our cheeseburgers and rock music.

But somewhere along the line, this big French kiss came to an abrupt end. French-American relations began to decline.

Americans who traveled to the City of Light in the 1980s returned with horror stories about rude French waiters and ignorant shopkeepers. Those same waiters and shopkeepers returned to their own homes with stories about arrogant American tourists and insolent exchange students.

They called us classless. We called them smelly.

And just as we were beginning to get over all that, the culture clash reignited over - of all things - Ira Einhorn.

In the case of the runaway American hippie, we've accused the French of harboring a killer and they've accused us of wanting to execute him - among other things.

Although Americans loosened up a bit last week when Bordeaux judges finally decided to extradite Einhorn, under certain conditions, anti-American sentiment blossomed among some French journalists covering the case.

An article in the French newspaper, Liberation, accused Americans of waging a boycott of French products, mostly of the Cognac produced near Einhorn's home. There is no American boycott of Cognac or any other French product.

The article referred to a "fixation" on Einhorn stirred up by the media, which is waging a campaign, using "prosecution reporting and vehement editorials."

The reporter also erroneously described Pennsylvania as "one of the harshest" death penalty states in the country.

" . . . the current prosecutor has sent 222 people to death row since taking office," the article said. Actually, that's the number of convicted murders put on death row since 1978, which included the terms held by District Attorneys Ed Rendell, Ron Castille and Lynne Abraham.

Only two murderers in Pennsylvania have been executed sine 1962, and both asked to die.

A French newspaper, Figaro, described American reporters covering the Einhorn case as having gone into "endless polemics about `France which protects a frightful woman killer.' "

And Einhorn's local paper, Charente Libre - which once published a story about Einhorn without ever mentioning the murder of Holly Maddux - has continued to swallow bad information passed by Einhorn's attorney about Pennsylvania's intention to execute Einhorn.

Einhorn will not be sentenced to death if returned to Philadelphia, Abraham promises.

Is this more evidence of France's hatred for Americans?

"It is not," said Patricia Le Foll, director of A l'Ecole Francais, a French school in Bala Cynwyd.

"My experience in France is that we don't hate Americans at all," said Le Foll, who moved to the United States nine years ago. ". . . It's just like here - there are some people who are not nice."

The hostility that has erupted over Einhorn on both sides of the Atlantic is most likely a symptom of cultural differences, said Judith L. Ujobai, executive director of the French-American Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia.

"I think in France they just really take human rights very seriously," Ujobai said.

"And I think that may have to do with their fervent beliefs that rights were violated" by a 1993 absenstia trial.

"I think Americans want to see justice," she said. "They want to see the bad guy punished."

But it's not just an argument over the judicial system: Bring up Einhorn's case in Philadelphia and you're bound to hear a slur against the French, followed by a half-dozen stories about how mean the French are.

Le Foll and Ujobai agreed that there was a time when the French were, indeed, less than friendly to tourists.

"It started by the late '70s and early '80s," said Le Foll. "It has nothing to do with politics. It was observed that we were not the gentlest shopkeepers."

Feeling as though they had received a "bad report card" for hospitality, the French government began an effort to be kinder to tourists, she said. "It is true that the French have improved," said Le Foll.

Current stereotypes of rude French waiters in cockeyed berets may be fostered by Americans who haven't traveled to the country since the 1980s, said Ujobai. Those who have visited France recently, she said, are more sensitive to the cultural differences.

"You can't just go over and act like a bull in a china shop," she said.

Speaking of bulls, Einhorn, once viewed as a harmless charmer in the village of Champagne-Mouton, has increasingly been described by neighbors as a manipulative blowhard.

He has been kicked out of the bridge club. The mayor of Champagne-Mouton, once a fervent Einhorn supporter, admitted recently that while he still doesn't believe Einhorn is guilty of murder, he will be keeping an eye on him.

His biggest hit, perhaps, has come from those who once were his easiest prey: women.

The women in Champagne-Mouton, according to French newspapers, have classified Einhorn as a bore and a "skirt-chaser."

Even the opinion of some French reporters seems to have evolved lately:

"Like hippie Mulders and Scullys [heroes of the TV series "X- Files"], the Einhorns keep advancing the theory of a plot, a skein which can be unwound forever, like the ambiguity which seizes you when you meet Ira: free spirit or lazy profiteer?" Francoise-Marie Santucci wrote last week in a French newspaper.