Giscard: The Paris Parlor Game

For several months now, the elegant salons of Paris' 16th arrondissement have been buzzing with gossip about the private life of French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Ever since the Paris daily Le Monde noted his penchant for mysterious nighttime disappearances from the Elysee Palace (TIME, Dec. 9), a favorite Paris parlor game has been to guess where, how arid with whom the President spends his evenings. Palace officials insist that Giscard's nocturnal wanderings involve nothing more adventurous than dropping in on old friends for a drink and a chat. They contend that his yearning to escape the pressures of office briefly is just a harmless aspect of his much-touted style naturel--the flair for informality that Giscard promised to bring to French politics.

One circumstance that supports the denials: the stories are wildly contradictory. If all the rumors inspired by Giscard's style naturel were true, he would have a capacity for bilocation and legerdemain that might more accurately be dubbed "le style surnaturel." Take, for instance, his purported 5 a.m. car collision with a milk truck last September. The accident was reportedly witnessed by some on the Champs Elysees, by others in a Paris suburb. Some say they saw him driving a black Citroen, some a green Peugeot. Others knowingly assert that the vehicle was a red Maserati borrowed from his friend, Film Director Roger Vadim. According to most of the rumors, he was alone on the night of the accident. Unless, of course, it is true, as some insist, that he was accompanied by an attractive young television announcer. Several elements of the collision story obviously require further investigation; no one has been able to locate the milkman, the witnesses or the chameleon Citroen-Maserati-Peugeot. Meanwhile, the Elysee has firmly denied that any such accident took place.

Salon Savants. If, as his critics maintain, the gossip implies that the President may be a bit too indolent in office, it also suggests that he is indefatigable outside it. Since the family has remained at Giscard's old house at 11 Rue de Benouville, while he sleeps most nights at the Elysee Palace, rumors have inevitably floated about presidential liaisons. Salon savants have linked him with at least one actress, one photographer and two princesses (one domestic, one foreign). Italian Princess Domietta Hercolani and French Photographer Marie-Laure de Decker are the only two who have been honored in the past by explicit mention in the press. The unpublished catalogue of alleged paramours, however, grows daily, and threatens to become the French equivalent of the now defunct White House "enemies list" as the sought-after billet of dubious distinction.

One of the most intriguing questions about the rumors is who started them. Orchestration of what may well be a politically motivated smear campaign has been variously attributed to leftists embittered by their defeat in last spring's election, Israeli embassy officials angered by France's pro-Arab tilt, secret-service men disturbed by Giscard's cavalier disregard of their efforts to protect him, Sygma photographers miffed by presidential patronage of a rival Gamma photographer, and old-guard civil servants appalled by Discard's relatively breezy approach to running the government. The explanation that has gained greatest currency is that hard-line Gaullists, who resent Giscard for having abandoned certain of the general's dogmas, are attempting to undermine his popular support.

Despite the salaciousness of the rumors, diplomatic sources maintain that they are unlikely to hurt Giscard's reputation much. France has a long tradition of shrugging off sexual improprieties with an attitude of amused tolerance. Former President Georges Pompidou managed to survive gossip that his high-spirited wife took more than a cultural interest in the fun-loving young artists of the Saint-Tropez jet set. Third Republic President Felix Faure achieved a kind of instant canonization in 1899, when it was learned that he died performing his amorous arts in a ground-floor room at the Elysee. The liaison amoureuse, in fact, is as venerable and popular an institution in Paris as the Comedie Franc,aise--the government-subsidized theater that has traditionally provided sinecures for aspiring young actresses willing to serve overtime as political mistresses.

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