Word: figaro
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CORSICAN brigands, Algerian footpads, Parisian safecrackers and other prowlers in the French underworld learned last week what they were missing by practicing crime at home 'instead of abroad in the U.S. A recent issue of Figaro printed excerpts from My American Prisons, a new book by Parisian Jacques Angelvin, 54, who describes his five years of confinement in half a dozen U.S. jails. Responding to the author's Michelinesque approach, Figaro also displayed appropriate symbols to indicate the comfort, cuisine, amenities, amusements and other facilities offered by American jails...
Never in its 102-year history, had Figaro missed an edition. Proper Parisians would no more think of doing without Figaro at breakfast than croissants. Employee control has not kept it from being the unabashed bastion of the French bourgeoisie; its sober, sensible columns rarely stoop to scandal or crusading...
...Macaroni Factory. The current crisis has its origins in the chaotic conditions that prevailed in France after World War II. In 1949, Jean Prouvost, a press baron (Paris-Match, Paris-Soir) as well as France's largest woolens manufacturer, purchased a controlling interest in Figaro. But because he had served briefly in the collaborationist Vichy regime, both Gaullists and leftists opposed letting him assume editorial command. So he signed an agreement with Figaro's noted editor, Pierre Brisson, who had killed off the paper during World War II rather than knuckle under to the Nazis. The agreement gave...
When Brisson died four years ago, Prouvost decided that he wanted more than financial satisfaction from his investment. Though the crusty, 83-year-old industrialist-publisher has refused to negotiate directly with Figaro's staff, his objectives have been clearly announced. "We favor the independence of newspapermen," says one of his underlings, "but the legal owners of Figaro are entitled to run their newspaper as they see fit, which includes the right to fire an editor-in-chief. We are living in a capitalist society, are we not?" To which the head of Figaro's journalists' association...
Last week's brief strike was a foretaste of the growing bitterness of the dispute. Prouvost is offering the editorial workers a voice in the management team that he proposes to set up when the old agreement finally lapses next May. Figaro's staff members are opposed because, at best, they would have only a weak, minority voice. They also recall all too well Prouvost's editorial shakeup at Paris-Match, France's leading picture magazine (TIME, July 12). With no solution in sight, other Paris newspapermen and publishers are squaring off on the sidelines...