The President and the Dragon...

The President and the Dragon...

Statesmen are often judged also by their serious attitude toward unserious matters. And on this score we have credited Giscard with two points.

You should have listened, as the writer of these lines did, to the spokesman for the Élysée Palace announcing, in an official statement, that at the traditional annual celebration the president holds for the children of France, President Giscard and Elliott the dragon (the hero of Walt Disney’s latest film) would appear side by side. The spokesman read the second name from his text with a little effort, but in all seriousness, as though it were the king of Saudi Arabia, at the very least.

The funniest thing is that they really did appear side by side in the end. Giscard and the dragon, to the delight of young and old alike.

Well, the official reports did not say a word about it. But we, as mentioned, entered two points for Giscard in our notebook. He will need them someday. And anyone who appears together with Elliott the dragon cannot be an altogether bad person.

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Just Like Home

Gloating over others’ misfortune is not a trait to be proud of. But if it is there already—there is nothing quite like it.

That is more or less what an average Israeli feels on entering, these days, the large “Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville” department store beside Paris City Hall. Several tough attendants apologize and demand, no less, that bags be opened and coats removed for inspection. Just like home. Several explosions have recently occurred at this store, for which various and sundry organizations (including pro- and anti-Jewish ones) claimed responsibility—but the police think a madman is behind it.

In any event, a captive little bird whispered to us that the person in charge of the new security arrangements there is, as it happens, an Israeli.

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“The Rescuer”: From the IDF—to the Top of Ready-to-Wear

The name Maurice Bidermann is a “big” name today. France’s “king of ready-to-wear,” whose prospects of success were still being questioned only a few years ago, is the man who now manufactures suits for Pierre Cardin and shirts for Valentino and Ungaro. This is in addition to his involvement in the American market, and, more than that, the South American one. Bidermann has been given the name “the rescuer”—because the “hobby” is buying failing factories and operating them in [illegible] his empire. His turnover is now approaching a billion francs.

At the age of sixteen, it emerges from Bidermann’s biography, he went to Israel, served in the IDF and was even wounded. Israel, he says, still occupies a central place in his life today.

What have we forgotten? Yes. Bidermann is also the brother of the veteran queen of nightlife, Régine. And if all this does not convince you that he comes from a good family, we have no further evidence at this stage.

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Three Days of Seminars

The proposal by the member of the Chamber of Deputies, Le Mac, to bring national brothels back to France and ban prostitution in the streets continues to make waves among the public.

Naturally, the strongest echoes are heard among those concerned, namely, the women practicing the profession. It should be noted that France’s prostitutes, almost without exception, reject the proposed idea. Street prostitution has proved most lucrative. Not to mention what Paris would be without its colorful female citizens of Rue Saint-Denis.

The high point of professional activity on the subject was three days of seminars convened by France’s prostitutes in Orléans. They came there from every quarter and deliberated for three days, as befits a self-respecting trade union, on the question: to close or not to close. The conference, it seems at this stage, dispersed with the feeling that everything was still open.

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A Readers’ Newspaper

This month is rich in events; one day, at your colleague’s, there occurs an issue of “the daily of the now”—MAINTENANT (“Maintenant”), which has, in my opinion, been awarded the most [illegible] of newspaper names in France.

One of its prominent editors is Jean Elleinstein—the well-known “intra-Communist oppositionist.” This is the man who recently called, in a series of articles in “Le Monde,” for [illegible] French people to march on Moscow and demand clear answers there on the observance of human rights.

What distinguishes the new newspaper is that it will be, quite literally, a newspaper belonging to its readers. Most of the newspaper’s shares (out of an initial capital of two and a quarter million francs) were offered for sale to the general public over several months, and the public bought them. In this way the editors hope to eliminate all dependence on any economic interest, and of course—to attract readers. Incidentally, the newspaper promises to employ well-known writers as reporters.

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On Red Financing

And speaking of the Communist Party, it turns out that this works in both directions: between the weekly “L’Express” and the Communist organ “L’Humanité.”

“L’Express” published an excerpt from a book due to appear shortly, entitled “Secrets of the Soviet Bank in France,” which describes the ties of the French Communist Party and its affiliated trade union—the CGT—with the Soviet-owned “North European Bank.”

An embarrassing accusation, on the face of it, for Secretary Georges Marchais, who has frequently accused various French journalists of being financed by the government. “L’Humanité,” for its part, maintains that the party’s ties with the bank fall within a customary and legal commercial framework, that eighty percent of its activities are financed by membership dues, and accuses “L’Express” of conducting a deliberate campaign. The affair, one may assume, will continue to unfold—on paper, of course.