Business Notes BUBBLE-GUM CARDS

From jazz to Jerry Lewis, American pop culture has often found a welcome audience in France. But nothing could have prepared the French for the latest U.S. export: Les Crados (The Dirty Ones), the Gallic edition of those Stateside sensations, the Garbage Pail Kids. A gruesome gallery of children's bubble-gum cards, Les Crados include such characters as Mathieu Degueu (Matthew Nosepicker), Herve W.C. (Toilet-Face Herve) and Laetitia Pus-de- Bras (Stinky-Pit Letitia).

Licensed to a French journalist by the New York-based Topps company, which launched their American forebears in 1985, Les Crados are suddenly de rigueur among French schoolchildren. Even though they were banned in some schools across the country within two months after their release in January, some 12 million packs have been sold at 40 cents each. But the real grossing-out has taken place among legions of appalled grownups. Les Crados have even come to the attention of Premier Michel Rocard, who said he was "astounded." The National Institute for Consumers' Affairs has been asked to investigate the craze.