Am I the only one who thinks that Hermes may actually have discriminated against her? While I don't like Oprah's liberalism, if the story unfolded the way it did, I'm glad she made a stink about it. If people like her (who have a ready bully pulpit) don't do it, you know the real little guy will not be able to.
On the other hand, it's a bit fun to see celebrities taken down a notch. I just saw a movie a few weeks ago on TV called "Papparazzi". It's about how a few Papparazzi caused the death of a movie star's wife and kid and he took revenge by murdering them and how he got away with it! You see, these stars get so annoyed when a certain profession takes advantage of their power (papparazzi), but they don't notice how they abuse their own power, i.e their ability to make movies attacking people (a la Oliver Stone) who can't very well retaliate.
I don't think they discriminated against her per se. I think Oprah probably got the tres snob treatment from some high-end Parisian shopgirls, and decided to whine publicly about it. A better plan would have been for her to find a way to inflict Dr. Phil on the French.