21 MAY 1977, Page 8

The French people's republic

Jonathan Guinness

M. Jean-Baptiste Doumeng is vaguely known to the British public as the French Communist multimillionaire who arranges sales of European butter to the Russians at giveaway prices. To the extent that this makes public fools of the sclerotic and overpaid Brussels bureaucracy, we might have a sneaking sympathy for his operations; except that the subsidy he arranges helps, not so indirectly, the Russian war machine.

The French know him better than we do, of course. Le Monde has exposed him from time to time as a rich and hypocritical vulgarian, his foul-mouthed philistinism offending the paper's cultural fastidiousness as much as his ruthless revolutionism titillates its class masochism. He comes over like the masked `baddy' the wrestling fans love to hate. He said once: 'Wine is just publicity. All the rest is balls. The only chance for a local wine is for someone to say on the radio that it boosts virility ten times.' But M. Doumeng's point is entirely lost if he is seen as simply a rather gamey original. He and his -companies are a serious phenomenon. They are only part of an immense financial empire run by and for the French Communist Party, and making it far and away the richest party in France. M. Doumeng stands out among the bureaucrats who control this empire by being colourful, but he is by no means the only French communist to practise a sumptuous lifestyle. The noise he makes about it, with his helicopter, his jet aircraft, his country houses, his suite at the Scribe hotel, may embarrass his colleagues, but they undoubtedly value his shrewdness. He made his money through dealing for the party, to which he has belonged since he was sixteen, and taking advantage of its facilities, especially a monopoly on trade in certain goods with Russia and Eastern Europe. But it is the whole empire of which he is a satrap that deserves to be better known.

A valuable book has recently appeared on this subject: Les Finances du P.C.F., by Jean Montaldo. The French Communist Party makes only a fraction of its money from contributions and normal fundraising: most of it comes from this business empire which shows every one of the unsavoury characteristics with which the Communists, with or without justification, regularly reproach private firms. They include 'confidential ramifications abroad; monopoly in certain areas; secret agreements; boycotts; inflated commissions and rates of interest; bribery; bureaucracy; wastefulness; fraud; inhuman technocracy; contempt for employees.' Forgery, too; M.

Montaldo cites a case where a M. Viala, registered as holding a majority of shares in one of the party's companies, suddenly died; and a transfer out of his name was prepared, dated just before his decease, with his signature clumsily forged. But by legitimate as well as illegitimate methods the party's ' commercial activities earn enormous sums. These pay not only for massive propaganda, but to consolidate a power complex that is a state within a state; a French people's republic already in existence.

Since well before Helphand financed Lenin, money has been recognised as the key to world revolution. In France, the true controller of the Communist Party is a vete ran Kremlin agent whose real name is Mikhail Feintuch, though he goes by the name of Jean Jerome. Communist dissidents have alleged that M. Georges Marchais, the party leader, is Jerome's 'creature.' His power lies in his overlordship of the party's confidential funds and commercial empire. M. Doumeng's part of this empire includes upwards of forty companies, mainly in food and agriculture, and including the Franco-Russian trade corporation. He is one of the big three wine dealers (in which connection he was in 1975 found guilty of adulteration). He also has food and farming 'co-operatives,' meat and vegetable distributors, factory farms, as well as companies dealing with agricultural machinery, and even an aircraft company.

But at least as important as his group is the one headed by another 'militant' called M. Lajarge; the GIFCO group. Companies in this group provide to communist run local authorities, at a handsome profit, services ranging from fumigation to insurance, and especially construction, building materials, and the purchase of property. A sub-group, SOCOPAP, among other things draws five per cent commission for 'intro: ducting' Communist councils to enterprises in the group. Thus, in huge quantities, ratepayers' money and government subsidies are diverted into the coffers of the Communist Party. This, to the extent that it is the object of an agreement — as the uniformity of the practice indicates it is — is illegal. A great deal of information in this area has come to light through the condemnation in January to prison of two officials of the Cooperative des Bois de l'Est, a communist timber firm that went too far. Ratepayers in Communist-run municipalities may hope that this, and forty-three other complaints now pending, will reduce their forced contribution to the Party. It will scarcely eliminate it, because, of course, the commercial structure remains in being, and the recent capture by the party of more local authorities will create more opportunities for plunder. Then there is a Soviet trade bank, the BCEN (Banque Commerciale pour l'Europe du Nord), which like the Moscow Narodny here is owned by the Soviet government through two state banks. The BCEN is by far France's largest foreignowned banking operation. It deals with all the communist operations —the party itself. the communist trade unions, the front organisations, as well as the commercial empire. In 1975 its profits were £20 million, and its balance-sheet total a staggering £1,500 million. The publicity and propaganda side of the party is also immensely powerful. Some of it is no doubt profitable, but the vast colleefion of publications obviously requires massive subsidies. The party has nine publicity companies, thirty-nine publishers of newspapers and gramophone records, twenty-five printing works, and thirty-two bookshops. It controls one national and five regional daily papers; thirty weeklies; thirty-four magazines including six which are overtly sporting magazines; eleven professional publications; and numerous local and specialised organs including foreign language ones of immigrants in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Arabic' Between them, these operations ensure that Communist propaganda, open and con' cealed, reaches more people in France more pervasively than anyone else's, including that of the government. There have been recent reports of the Chilean government using American computer technology to control and monitor] citizens. The French Communists are now doing this in three large regions of France Where they control local government, and they are doing all they can to extend their net. In a confidential document leaked last November by a dissident, the claim was made that the party possessed a range of computers capable of recording data on every French citizen. For the moment, of course, this will help the party to direct its Propaganda effort; but its real importance could well be to the secret police apparatus if the party attains power. The computers are installed, and the municipalities coached in their use by a company called SOGIR, part of the GIFCO group. The Party also keeps total control of its f_unctionaries, notably its MPs and mayors. Such People have to pay their salary to the Party, receiving back only the equivalent of a skilled worker's wages. All very democratic; but the Party also allows facilities in kind to be drawn which correspond to the individual's standing in the party, and which, of course, in ihe case of the leaders, far exceeds the actual salary forgone. Some people, of course, have the knack of transferring from one elite to the other without trouble. The chairman and managing director of the Soviet trade bank, BCEN, is M. Guy de Boysson. His forebears were upper-class, and his father was a director of one of the big French railway companies. Presenting himself for election as a Communist, he once described himself as 'railwayman's son,' and now the party has made him one of Europe's top bankers. Arise, ye wretched of the earth!