Paris:- Saturday, 15. February 1997:- It is 'awards' time in France as well as in other parts of the world, but your alert reporter failed to notice last Saturday night's broadcast of the movie awards - the 22nd 'Nuit des Césars.' Sometimes these, and other awards, are accompanied by unprogramed 'demonstrations,' but it is rare.

Best film of the year as well as best director went to Patrice Leconte for his film, 'Ridicule.' I think I recall Metropole's one-time movie reviewer, Mr. Fox, going to see this film and being so uncertain about it that it wasn't reviewed. 'Ridicule' also won Césars for best decor and costumes. Wednesday's Le Parisien reports that it has also been selected by Hollywood to try out for an Oscar on 24. March in Los Angeles.

Fanny Ardant got a César as best actress for 'Pédale Douce' and Philippe Torreton picked it up for acting in 'Capitaine Conan.' 'Un Air de Famille' won three Césars in all and the movie starring real bugs, 'Microcosmos,' won four.

Before leaving the flicks, Charles Aznavor, 72, received a 'César d'Honneur' and on Monday night at the 12th annual 'Victories de la Musique,' he won the award as the best male artist of the year.

According to Le Parisien, he thought this was overdoing it and suggested awards should go to younger artists who had more difficulty filling big halls.

Teri Moïse, a Haitian who grew up in Los Angeles, picked up the award for 'L'Artiste Interprète Francophone.' The soul ballad 'Les Poèmes de Michelle' is making waves in France, and Virgin is just about to put her first album, 'Musicalement Correct,' onto the shelves.

In all, veterans picked up a good number of the awards, which was what probably prompted Aznavor's remarks. Eddy Mitchell got a 'Victoire' for his album 'Mr. Eddy' and I heard he recently filled up the giant Bercy sports palace for a three-day weekend.

Want a Job? Get Out of Town, Out of the Country Even

A couple of weeks ago President Chirac was down in Boulogne looking at the employment office's pilot Internet job-seek effort there, and he made some off-the-cuff remarks to the job-seekers present that they should be prepared to look for jobs outside France.

At the time the media went bonkers over this innocent remark - what? French youth has to look for hamburger-flipping jobs in America? Is the President off his nut?

Recently I have heard radio FIP in the morning running ads from the employment office, seeking cooks for jobs in London. There is nationalism, there is politics; and French youth is not for exporting. Oh, the media rumbled on about it for days.

Therefore I was quite surprised to see in Tuesday's Le Parisien a two-page feature with the big headline, 'Travailler à l'Etranger, C'est Possible!' And then the paper goes on with, 'Why not try a chance beyond the border?'

The paper gives some examples of professions in which there are openings outside of France, and has a boxed list of all the French and European agencies in France that can help people find a job abroad. Apparently there are about 1.6 million French living and working outside the country, with nearly a quarter-million in the USA and up to the 150,000 mark in both Germany and England.

Of the five on-the-street interviewees, three were positive, one was a 'could-be' and only one refused the idea outright.

France's Prisoner of the Week is Lonely

Bernard Tapie had been sitting in Paris' La Santé prison for less than a week, with about eight months to go, but still managed to make all of page 13 of Le Parisien on Monday. The headline said, 'Tapie Gets More Than 100 Letters a Day.'

The prison has a special block of cells for 'personalities' and the paper thoughtfully provides a diagram so we will know exactly where Mr. Tapie is spending his nights. And that 'exactly' is cell number 3/207 and he has nine square metres in which to roam around.

Normal 12 square-metre cells have from four to six inmates. La Santé, built in 1867, is Paris' only prison and third in rank in France; but for what I don't know. It is overpopulated and its director wants a renovation program for it.

TV-news and Thursday's Le Parisien had a front-page photo of Mr. Tapie's first visitors on Wednesday, who were identified as his wife, son and daughter-in-law.

However the cruelest report of all was in Friday's International Herald Tribune, which noted that Mr. Tapie has asked prison authorities to be transferred out of the special block and dumped in with the general prison population.

On the facing page of the same issue of the IHT, the auctioneer Maître Jean-Claude Pierrel is calling for bids in a display ad with two photos, for the sailing ship 'Le Phocéa,' a 'winner of a 1988 Transatlantic crossing.' The 74-metre four-master can be seen at the Port d'Antibes, at the Quai des Milliardaires. Offers for the ship have to be in before 1. March.

If, as Le Parisien reported, Mr. Tapie is not reading the papers it is a good thing. If my dodgy memory is correct, this was his ship and became the object of a tax-evasion conviction, one that Mr. Tapie will soon be appealing.

Actors Take On the Front National

The Front National administration of the port city of Toulon has fired the director of the acclaimed Theatre National of Dancing and Audiovisual of Châteauvallon.

The administration of the city, lead by mayor, has cut the subsidy to the cultural centre, and Gérard Pacquet has fought back in every way possible for the past 18 months.

On Thursday, 4,000 actors, writers, musicians, directors and other theatre people got off several trains in Toulon and assembled at the Place de la Liberté to protest against the action to dissolve the cultural site. As they filed past the city hall they were saluted from the balcony with a raised champagne glass by the mayor's wife, Sandrine Le Chevallier.

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