Paris:- Sunday, 23. February 1997:- The past is not over and the future is not begun; in the absence of a sense of direction, the French are confused in this time of the present.

Last fall a bill was introduced in the National Assembly, which will, if it passes, require the hosts of foreign guests to signal their departure to local city halls. This measure is to be a companion to a 1982 measure which requires hosts to apply for 'lodging permits' on behalf of foreign guests.

The effect of both measures would have put the responsibility for reporting the arrival and departure of foreigners staying privately in France, on their hosts and the initial administration of the paperwork would have been the responsibility of local city halls - of which there are more in France than any other European country.

These 'lodging permits' do not apply to citizens of European Community countries, and according to the International Herald Tribune, do not apply to any visitor with a normal visa. Immigration agents at border entry points may refuse admission to travellers without valid papers. I do not know if the 'Certificat d'Hébergement' was meant to be a substitute for a proper visa.

I went to my own city hall, and got an example of the 'Certificat d'Hébergement' as it is officially called. An exclusion for foreigners with visas is not included in the printed text on the document; it just says 'd'un Etranger,' and I take this to mean anyone who is not a citizen or is without a valid residence permit.

During the past week, this proposed measure has ignited public opinion: both against and for the measure. Yesterday in Paris, about 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the adoption of the measure, and there were similar protest marches in all of France's major centres.

Some observers have noticed the similarity of the new law to wartime measures introduced by the Vichy government of France which required private citizens to officially announce the lodging of Jews in their homes.

As of today, the present government has only proposed an amendment which would shift the registration from the local city hall to the local prefecture, which is a departmental administrative office. The bill will have its second reading in the French parliament next Tuesday and Wednesday, 25. and 26. February.

The measure is widely believed to have the intention of reducing illegal immigration to France. It is not aimed at visitors from developed countries who wish to stay privately while visiting Paris.

However, if this is explicitly written into the law, then it will be apparent that this law is aimed directly at visitors coming from certain parts of Asia and Africa. If the text does indicate this, it is unlikely that the law will pass the scrutiny of the Constitutional Council - and the government has explicitly pointed out that the law it intends to pass, may be unconstitutional; and therefore citizens worried about civil rights will have nothing to fear.

This may be an example of 'French logic' in action. As a taxpayer, I object to the exercise of the government wasting time and money in proposing laws that cannot be enacted because they are contrary to the constitution of the country.

One government spokesman said the government had no figures for the number of illegal immigrants because - they are not registered of course. Legal immigration, in contrast, has fallen by about 50 percent in the last few years, to somewhere around 80,000 recently. It is possible this has been done by narrowing the 'window of eligibility.'

France has complicated rules for legal residency. Children born in France, even to parents who do not have legal resident status, cannot be deported. In principle, neither can their parents. If, say, the father leaves France to visit his mother in Africa, he may be refused entry upon return - even through there are laws in France to prevent the dissolution of families. There have been a number of cases recently, where the parents of children born in France have not had their long-standing residence permits renewed. Children born in France who have left temporarily to visit grandparents, have been refused entry on return - which effectively makes them stateless.

For the last 85 years of the last century, France saw a conflict between adherents of the royalist regime and the inheritors of the Republic. By the end of the century, an industrialized and generally prosperous France was largely Republican.

It was also the time of the height of the colonies for European countries and the time that nationalism became institutionalized. By the end of the century, the following one looked so promising that two 'universal' expositions took place in Paris, in 1889 and 1900. Both were successful and both captured the public's fancy: it was a great way to start the to-be-wonderful 20th Century.

The insanity of nationalism wrecked these hopes. Without the invention of nationalism, there would have been no volunteers to fight the wars for commercial domination of the planet.

Now it is recognized that a national country is incapable of 'winning' such a war, because the only way to achieve commercial 'domination' is though the intellect of individuals - not nations - and no country has a monopoly in this area. Instead, there are companies that operate on a worldwide basis; run by the intellect of many people, who are citizens of many countries.

These new companies are variously called 'multinationals' or 'transnationals' and I don't think it would be all that bad to think up a better term for them, one that does not include the word 'national.' These companies are the reality of the 21st Century - of the future in other words.

At the geographic centre of Europe; as a founding member at political centre of the emerging European Community, France's 19th Century role as a European nation is finished.

It is a sad history to leave behind, but deserves no excessive regret. France's problems today stem almost entirely from a nostalgia for its 'national' past, as flawed as it was.

Regardless of the fact that about a quarter of today's French citizens have grandparents who were not born in France - France has historically been a target of migrations of peoples - regardless of the fact that France has given the world its modern constitutions based on the rights of individuals - and regardless of the fact that France is a major member of the regularly denounced 'new world order,' there is a reactionary fraction of the French population which would deny these facts, which would gladly return the whole country to 1872 if it could.

How odd it is, to live in a country that seems to be unconscious of the arrival of a new millennium and is instead celebrating an international sporting event by building a huge and ridiculously expensive new stadium.

What does it mean, if anything, that the millennium count-down clock at Beaubourg has been suppressed? Has the Ministry of Culture decided that France has no future?

The country is in neutral, suspended between the past and the future. One morning, and I hope it will be not only rosy but soon, France is going to wake up with the decision that the future has arrived, and then it will begin.

When this happens, everybody will know it, because somebody will say they are going to build another, modern, Eiffel Tower - as a new symbol of French intellectual energy and artistic imagination.

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