LUXURY AND RACKETS IN PARIS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5308, 22 January 1947, Page 7

LUXURY AND RACKETS IN PARIS

ROGKETING PRICES

UNUSUAiL TRElNID TOWARDS PURITANISM IN FRANCE. I visited Paris to see the French capital under the first imp'act of its third winter since liberation, writes Colin Bingham in the Sydney Morning Herald. As I drove up the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees on an early Decem■ber morning the last yellow leaves of the plane-trees were out in the roadway dancing a fandango. In the propaganda of tourism there are human beings, especially in the night clubs of Montmartre, who are as frolicsome as the wind-blowu leaves, but you don't need to be very perceptive in Paris this winter to discern that the liveliness of the music halls, the chatter of the histros and the restaurants, and the nonchalant parading on the bouievards have a background of anxiety. Politically the Parisian does not feel seeure; not least because almost daily more than 20 newspapers testify to the manoeuvres of party politicians, ■but most of all, -perhaps, ibecause he feels on every hand the effects of the great cleavage between Communism and anti- Communism. Socially, in the wider meaning of the word, the drench do not feel secure because, apart from the political and economic uncertainties, they are conscious that collaboration and other moral defects stimulated by the German occupafion have" so deeply wounded them spiritually that their convalescence must be slow and painful.

Economically, millions of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen feel most uncertain of all. Runaway Franc. Devalued in Jalnuary last year from 200 to £1 sterling to 480, the franc is now quoted at more than 1000 to £1 on the unofficial market. Prices have run away in the past few months, with wages tailing along behind, but forcing prices up further each time they themselves are raised — the classical spiral of inflation. Take a few facts in the financially harassed life of a French clerk. His salary is 9000-10,000. francs a month, hut if he wants to buy a suit of clothes of average quality it will cost him 15,000 francs. His ration of wine — which is a precious thing to him — is supposed to be three litres a month, but in the second week of Noveniber, for instance, only the third litre of the September ration was available. For his wine, 'which is of ordinary qiuality, he pays 40 francs a litre on the ration, but if he goes to the black market to satisfy what he regards as a very moderate human requirement the price for wine of the same quality will be 120 francs a litre. For the meat which is now denied him on the controlled market he pays

— if he can, which must he rarely — a fantastic priee on the 'black market; , fche equivalent of £2 for a not very ; handsome shoulder of mutton or 9s | or 10s for a pound of mutton chops. j The prices -of deco|ntrolJ(ed food- j stuffs, partieularly eggs and pota- j toes, are rocketing as winter closes j down. Eggs are ls each. Cost of Living is Terrific. ; The cost of living in Paris, where ordinary people could not survive ; economically if it were not for the i relatively reasonable rentals, is espe- ! cially "outrageous" to the middle and lower middle classes. ; Compared wtih 100 as the index Ligure for the average of retail prices in Paris in 1938, the figure is now approximately 900, which includes a sharp rise of about 350 points since ' last May. j The index figure for heat and light is about 550, compared with 335 last , May and 100 in 1938. The other day thousands of Parisw&rkmen, protesting against the shortage of meat — although there are more cattle in France to-day than in 1939 — and the exorbitant prices, filed past the almost empty stockyarids at La Villette and. shouted "Death to the ! starvers of the people!" Parisians have so far managed to endure the cost of living because there is perhaps no other city in the world with such a highly developed private "bread-baslcet" liaison with the food producing coumtryside. There is a degree of loyalty in the French family that is sometimes sur- ; prising to the foreigner who has , h'een misled by the music-halls, and hundreds of thousands of urban i dwellers co-unt surely upon relatives i living on farms, or buying in cheaper j pua-al markets, to reinf orce .the supply of necessities. i In an attempt to ease their eco- j nomic burden great numbers of humble Frenchmen have themselves become | "black marketeers," and bribes are j taken to-day with perhaps as easy a conscience as at any time in the hisory of France. I Skilled Men Go on Black Market. I Communist trade -union officials re- j ce^tly revealed that several hundred thousand skilled workmen have left industry to set up one-man businesses in which the protits of illicit dealings in rationed commodities are much more remunerativd than the monetary benefits of honest work. The depressing facts I have given admittedly constitute only a part of the complex social and economic picture in France as winter dims the clear beauty of the Parisian vistas. Coal production this month is more than 20 per cent. above the monthly average of 1938, and no-one need cavil because there are 40,000 Poles and 45,000 German prisoners of war among the 218,000 miners. French exports have attained a new -high level in sterling and dollar value. The recovery of the transport system is remarkablp testimony to French toil and initiative. Paris faithfully reflects most of the encouraging and discouraging trends in France. The shop windows are fuill of desirable goods, mostly in the luxury

knock When practically has disappeared from the legitimate mariket there are scores of restaurants in Paris where the choicest cuts . can be commanded at a price — and there are plenty of Frenchmen with the money to command them. Many of them are racketeers. Active Reformers. The Paris underground trains, running with remarkahle frequency, carry you prodigiouts distances for the equivalent of a penny, and on the surface there is a cheap, efficient and farreaching service of autobuses. Even the Paris taxis, driven with a recklessness that is 'beyond redemption, risk your life for a relatively moderate charge — unless you ride in a taxi that hasn't a meter and runs on black-market petrol. You then risk losing both youir life and your money. Once you leave the footpath as a pedestrian the traffic lunges at you ' with incredible ferocity. Most of the shining cars in the tidal wave of automobilism that funnels through critical thoroughfares like the Rue Royale would soon exhaust their monthly petrol ration. After that their owners carry on -by tapping the suirreptious supply that is seemingly inexhaustible. 'It would he unfair to leave the ( reader with an impression of a morI tally corrupt society. As in most civij lised countries there is a great mass J of citizenry which is a long way this j side of evil. Reformers of various schools hope j to be .able to rely on this material to I secure the political and social foundaj tions of the Fourth Republic.

| Fount of Good in Europe. ' In philosophy and in the arts there \ is a vigorous movement of ideas. A French friend said to me: "With all the shortcomings that you see here in Paris, I still believe that if anything good comes out of Europe in the next generation, it will come out of France." O'bservers have seen an impulse toj wards Puritanism in some recent ; events in France. In Paris the "maii sons de tolerance" have been closed I as a result of a campaign against J prostitution. But few of the displaced prostitutes seem to have taken up do1 mestic work. The bouievards are heavy i with them. A French anti-vice group i has sued the publishers of a French ' translation of Henry Miller's "Tropic | of Capricorn" and "Black Spring." ; And something has happened that no foreigner who thinks of the Foliesj Bergere when he thiniks of Paris" { would believe possible unless he saw J the evidence repeated several hundred i times in poster form. j A play by Paul Sarte, the dramatist | and philosopher, which is running at. j a Paris theatre, was advertised on the hoardings uinder the title "La | Putain Respectueuse" ("The Respect- | ful Harlot"). i Within a week "Putafci" was neatly j blacked out on scores of posters — a ' strange sight for visiting Londoners. I