text: Intermediate 
  Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for 50,000. She says that his work of  ction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life.
  La premiere chose quon regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Gregoire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the books lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the models looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson and, in the end, dies in a car crash.
  Johansson does not feel  attered by the best- selling book. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourts novel illegally used Ms Johanssons name, her reputation and her image. He said the novel contains defamatory claims about her private life. He has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema.
  Delacourt tried to explain that he chose to mention Johansson because she is the archetype of beauty today. He said: I wrote a work of  ction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.
  On French radio, the author recently said the legal action was rather sad. He said: It freaks me out to think that when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.
  Delacourt is one of Frances best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a  lm. But he said he was speechless when he found out Johansson was suing him.
  I thought shed get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didnt write a novel about a celebrity, he said. I wrote a real love story about feminine beauty, especially interior beauty.
  If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us  a brand of beer, a monument, an actor  its going to be complicated to produce  ction.
  Im not sure shes even read the novel because it hasnt been translated yet.
  Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Latte_s, said taking legal action was crazy. We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising because the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johanssons double.
  Ironically, the authors legal situation would be far easier if he had published the book in Johanssons home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York lawyer, said that the case would most likely not go to court in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment.
  He said that, if theres signi cance and literary merit to using her name in the book, the First Amendment would protect the authors right to do so. However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken much more seriously, Jassin says.
  I thought she might send me  owers as the book was a declaration of love for her, but she didnt understand, Delacourt said.