Paris:- Saturday, 9. November 1996:- You already know the big news this past week was not 'made in Paris.' Bill Clinton was re-elected President of the United States and the President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, handily survived a serious heart operation.

There was other serious news this week, but it did not happen in Paris, nor in France. Lesser news, which did happen here - I don't normally report in Metropole for various reasons. Local politics and political quarrels, political scandals, disasters of all sorts, corruption trials, robberies, murder and assorted mayhem - I don't report. You have your versions of these where you live.

Loony Cows at Hard Rock Café

This bit of news has probably made a world tour by now; and I was going to ignore it because I consider the Hard Rock Café to be in about the same category as - what? - well, not 'American' like McDonald's or Burger King. I have not been in the United States for a long time and Hard Rock Cafes may be as common as gas stations for all I know - but I doubt it. It is the 'put the formula cafe in a crate and export it' idea that I don't like, and I apply it to mass-produced English and Irish 'pubs' too.

The bones of the story are simple. French health inspectors made a routine visit to the Paris Hard Rock Café and discovered 300 kilos of beef patties, in boxes labeled 'made in Great Britain.' There is a total import ban of British beef products in France on account of the 'Vache Folle,' which Metropole earlier reported with headlines such as 'Crazy Europe Week' last spring - first in Metropole 1.06, 29. March 1996

The Hard Rock Café's defense was that it Irish beef, merely packaged in Britain. The French authorities thought this over for a few days to allow the HRC operators to come up with some proof of their claim, and when the deadline passed and they were unable to satisfy the law, the café was closed.

This raises all sorts of questions - both for the Hard Rock Café and for the French health inspectors. How did the boxes packed with hamburger even get into the country? One has to presume either innocence or rampant stupidity of the cafe's operators - look in the deep-freezer: there's 300 k's of apparently illegal beef in there! They never expected to get inspected? The GB labels were not small - I saw them clearly on TV.

While officials and cafe operators are in a tizzy about this affair, I may as well bring the 'Vache Folle' issue up to date. In 20 years, it has been proven that about seven people have died as a result of eating beef contaminated with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - out of a European population of 350 million. The number of people who have died during this time from other forms of food poisoning is unknown to me - but I will bet it is more than seven. You have to eat to live, and life is a gamble.

Snail Racing

Last Wednesday's Le Parisien said that there would be 600 or 700 heavy trucks in Paris for a demonstration on Thursday, and I had to decide whether this would be disruptive enough for a 'Flash News' warning. The news story seemed to indicate that it might not be all that bad - except for the unknown factor of the opening of the new A14 autoroute short-cut, from Orgeval to La Défense.

This last bit, that allows drivers to skip the notorious A13 plug in the tunnel at St. Cloud has a drawback: it is the first Ile-de-France autoroute with tolls - and they are not cheap. It costs 30 francs for a one-way from Orgeval to La Défense. But why this new route would aggravate the trucker's demo, escaped me.

On Thursday, around 7:30 radio FIP was saying it didn't look too bad. But out on the streets, at 8:30, you could feel it. As always I am avoiding the bad knots, but the side streets are clogged - and where I'm going, there are no round-about alternate routes; once committed, then I'm stuck.

Mind you, this is 20 kms west of Paris, and there's a jam on a side-road in the forest of Marly too. Back home, radio FIP is now saying that the normal seven km jam on the RN10 is now 14 kms. Le Parisien tried the new A14 yesterday by testing it against the older routes - on the A14 you pay 30 francs and it takes 38 minutes. The A13 is free, but it takes 61 minutes.

The truckers were quoted as saying they didn't want to jam Parisians up too badly, so they weren't coming with the 3,000 to 4,000 trucks they can muster - no, Paris on Thursday just had a small version of the 'snail races.'

See Metropole Diary in this issue.

New Book by Françoise Sagan

'Le Miroir Egaré' by Françoise Sagan has just been published by Editions Plon. After 42 years of giving interviews she is wondering what to talk about, but another one with Le Parisien doesn't hurt - so long as it incites people to read the book.

It is the time of the literary prizes in France and she has not received one since the Critic's Grand Prize in 1954, for 'Bonjour Tristesse,' her first published work. Born Françoise Quoirez in 1935 at Cajarc, she has now had 12 novels published, in addition to one play, in 1960.

She smokes menthol cigarettes and she is not in any hurry to write her next book. When she is ready she will do it.

'Le Miroir Egaré,' Editions Plon, 120 pages, 120 francs.

'Instants de Jazz'

Christian Rose often goes with Mike Zwerin to talk to resident and visiting jazzmen in Paris, and while Zwerin asks questions, Christian takes the photos - to accompany the interviews - often published in the International Herald Tribune. This book contains 150 of these portraits and is worth having, especially if it contains some of the photos I have seen in the paper over the years. Editions Filipacchi, 144 pages, 275 francs.

France Gall Does R'n'B at the Olympia

After starting out with 'La Groupie du Pianiste,' France Gall continued her concert - dubbed 'her first real one' by Le Parisien - with 90 minutes of 'flamboyant funk,' also described as stunning rhythm'n'blues, with singular interpretations of 'Mademoiselle Chang,' 'Débranchez' and 'Les Uns Contre des Autres.' However, it wasn't total treason, as she reminded the audience of former hits such as 'Lumière du Jour,' in honor of the memory of Michel Berger.

France Gall at the Olympia, until Sunday, 17. November. 28. Boulevard des Capucines, Paris 8. Tel.: 01 47 42 25 49. Her tour of France begins in Bordeaux on 20. November. For information, tel.: 01 40 68 79 79.