JULY IS THE MONTH for all sorts of nationalistic kerfuffle in both the U.S. and France. Both had eighteenth-century revolutions. Both have parades and fireworks (10 days apart) to mark them. Both have statues of liberty: the full-size original in New York harbor; a smaller replica presiding over an island on the River Seine in Paris. But only in France are there national sales days. You’ve got to love a country where the timing of price reductions is a matter of public policy. This summer, June 30 was the blast-off date. Although I am not currently in a retail mecca like Paris, I did what I could to support the euro (which had sagged to a dollar equivalency of 1.19 in June but has since rebounded to 1.23): extremely classy sheets, white piqué with gray piping; and some organic cotton knit clothing from Ekyog, a highly ecological Brittany-based company. Since all this was 40 percent off, I am striving for a Piaf-like attitude: “Non, je ne regrette rien.”