AFTERTHOUGHT
La vie en rouge
JOHN WELLS
Austerity, writes Scampi de Mornay, our man with his finger in the French wind, is not a word that coaxes a smile onto the wine-cracked lips of the average full-bot- tomed French bossu. Speak to him of love and he will roll his eyes like dark Catherine wheels of smoking lust, his eyebrows danc- ing in the heat, erotic chuckles escaping from his fleshy throat as he intimates ob- scene caresses with the small pink mains grown by the natives of this former Roman province. Speak to him of politics, and the dancing eyebrows will arrest themselves, the eyes shrink into marbles of hate. and the
expressive hand will emball itself before flying forwards—seemingly of its own voli- tion—to crush the nose of the questioner.
But speak to him of l'austerite, and the most violent reaction you may expect is a dry
whistle, a languid reformation of the fea- tures into a melancholy-contemplative cast, and a silence that is disturbed only by the
tapping of a wedding ring on the empty glass, wordlessly demanding another coup de Watney's.
Such at least has been my own experience as I have probed the mood of Paris this week. This Paris, where only a few days
ago the dramatic news of the devaluation of the Franc struck the ordinary homme dans la rue like a high-pressure jet of the
water-cannon employed during the 'events' of last May. And yet, as I sat at red, plastic-
topped tables during the slow sultry after- noons of the Parisian August, when the yellow awnings above with their faded ad- vertisements for Byrrh, Dubonnet and Pschitt scarcely stir in the heat, and the sad chestnuts in their circular iron gratings gather dust from the petrol-hot, gear-chang- ing traffic that flows incessantly through the city like the bifurcations of some immense river of metal and glass and rubber, I found it hard to sense that anything so extraordi- nary had taken place. Parisian women passed on the pavements in their tight skirts and well-filled tricots, some looking con- tentedly in front of them, followed by diminutive. sniffing poodles on their fragile leads, some engaged in demonstrative con- versations with their friends, some thought- ful, in black. with purse and shopping basket. Not even the slow-moving. open- handed tourists seemed aware of any change. For the man in the street, it ap- peared. Paris was once again Paris.
Piecing together the evidence available, it is difficult to understand how such a secret as the proposed devaluation of the Franc can have been kept for so long from the tireless and ever-vigilant press. Not one of the taxi-drivers I spoke to as they steered their low, well-sprung Citroens through the immense river of metal and glass and rub- ber that is the petrol-hot, gear-changing traffic of Paris, had heard so much as a whisper of the news before M Giscard d'Estaing's momentous announcement. Even the doorman at the 'George V', traditionally as well-informed on the minutiae of internal policy as the President of the Republic him- self, confessed to me that he was 'over- turned' by the communiqué. One man I spoke to at the Elysee had still heard nothing about it yesterday, and expressed his gratitude to me for telling him the news. Yet the purpose of this triumphant exercise in discretion is not hard to understand. With such facts at the disposal of the very in- telligent corps of international pressmen in Paris, the market would have been swamped at the very first whiff of a rumour by shrewd and well-informed newspaper readers from all over the world. It was perhaps the very simplicity of the situation which made it imperative that the secret should be kept so well until that dramatic Friday night.
In a nutshell, as one man at the Bourse put it to me over a drink in the Café Toto, this was the state of affairs: with massive support from the IMF and a maximum fall- back position being maintained with regard to the statutory EEC Emergency Drawing Rights, bearing in mind the seasonal up- swing of relative variables on the Foreign Exchange Market, and, in addition, the re- cently formed Committee of the Six's deci- sion to maintain partial parity with Asso- date Members under the provisions of t Treaty of Ghent, France could hale done one of two things. Either she could hose jumped in at the deep end and attempted to float the Franc against the Euro-Dollar or the German Mark, depending on which was closer, or she could have plumped for a massive splash into the convertible cur- rency reserves in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Or alternatively she could haw tried to take the heat out of the over-%alued Euro-Rouble by opening the door to the three bears, Yugoslavia, Switzerland and San Marino.
In the event France did none of these things. Deciding to ride out the storm on float obtained from the Basle AllieWneine Floaenboonundpedaloherstellerie AG, and mopping up as much internal liquidity as possible with a sponge. Pompidou seems to have gambled on not having to take down his parity by more than a mere fraction: then, with a Jenkinsian touch on the tiller. he hopes to come in slightly under par on the autumn trade cycle, carried on by a weak Kongradiev wave, and thus be home and dry with something in the kitty for emergencies by the spring of 1970. This may not be as easy as it sounds. A sudden run on the franc, for example, by central bankers who have been hitherto content to dabble in the shallows, desperate to unload lire or pounds, could well knock him oft course. Add to that the impact of a sudden squeeze from an unexpected quarter, or a speculative attempt to freeze his short-term assets, and Pompidou could well lose his credibility.
How long it will take the philosophic moustaches of the Gaullist old guard to grasp the simplicity of the situation it is difficult to say. How long before the mean- ing of the word austerity dawns on the man in the Parisian café we do not know. How long before the average Frenchwoman feels herself hit in the shopping bag, or the French businessman squeezed where it hurts? Pompidou may well be seizing the bull by the horns. but what of the bear be- hind? Questions such as these flood through the mind like the Parisian traffic coursing through the leafy boulevards, the apathetic flaneurs along the hot pavements. Is this enough, do you think? If not suggest you reprint last para story in France Soir intro- duced by words 'As one French economist summed it up for me in the Brasserie Lipp last night'. Could I have it in sterling this wk do you imagine? Regards S.deM.
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