Long Sentence Asked For Tapie

Strange French Birds Make Exotic Exports

Paris:- Saturday, 31. May 1997:- On account of his medical condition, Bernard Tapie was allowed to be absent from court last Tuesday and he made no appearances during the week. He had two cardiac 'alerts' the previous week.

He was also sitting in jail instead of working as a boat broker on Monday; and after Wednesday's court session, his lawyers were hesitant to ask for more semi-liberty.

Wednesday was a dark day for Mr. Tapie in court as an assisting prosecutor spent two hours going through a mountain of bills and invoices, involving the football club, Olympic Marseille.

Characterized by Evelyne Kitanoff as 'surrealistic sums' for 'unexplained destinations,' she tried to make sense of the football club's finances; she called it 'this system of fraud.'

She said the club had a long descent into hell; and evoked the broken dreams of its younger supporters. She said the management had broken moral laws as well as legal ones.

In the end, she asked the court for a four-year sentence for Mr. Tapie, with two years to be served in prison. She also requested a two million franc fine, and Mr. Tapie's suspension of civic rights - the right to vote, to run for office - for five years.

In addition, Madame Kitanoff suggested that the conviction on the other case - the fixed soccer match - be made consecutive and be executed immediately upon pronouncement.

Slightly lesser terms and fines were demanded for the other defendants in the case, including Mr. Tapie's one-time right-hand man at the club, Jean-Pierre Bernés - who assisted the prosecution considerably.

All of the defendants' lawyers protested the severity of the proposed penalties; saying that none of those charged had personally received any money and none were charged with corruption. They were to plead for their clients today.

Tonight, TV-news showed an extremely angry Madame Tapie talking to reporters outside a public building - a lady highly indignant about her husband's treatment by the French legal system. Madame Tape is not a public person, and this was a rare sight of this very angry, but elegant lady.

French Exports Go To the Birds

Today 26 ostriches and 92 emus will embark at Marseille, for a 36-hour sea cruise to Tunisia, to join the Tarak Cherif Group at Nabeul, north of Hammamet.

There they will find 200 hectares of bird farm at a joint venture called 'Tunisie Autruches,' capitalized with five million dollars.

It is not widely known that France is an exporter of ostriches and emus, and this is the second shipment this week. Last Monday, 174 ostriches and 109 emus left Roissy for a four-hour flight to the same destination, and 500 of the birds were exported last year to Saudia Arabia, to the agro-conglomo of Adualla al Ali Alumunajem and Sons, who are located on the Persian Gulf.

Founded in 1990, France Autruches groups 25 growers in the region of Chateaubriant, in the department of Loire-Atlantique. This group had a turn-over of 36 million francs in 1996; of which 22 million was taken in for meat sales alone, a 100 percent jump over 1995 figures. The breeders are raising 6,000 ostriches and 8,000 emus on 500 hectares - and they handle the food-chain from eggs to plate.

The attraction of the birds for Saudia Arabia and Tunisia, is mainly their meat, but also for hides and fat. The red meat, close to beef filet, is 100 percent kosher with the Koran.

There is also a zoological innovation here: these are the first emus to be acclimatized to Tunisia; but their ostrich cousins still require a special preserve - located in the south of the country.

The Banana Wars Move to Europe

It may also not be well-known, but Europe has its own Banana Republics. Some of these actually are republics, but most of them are 'overseas territories' of France. The countries involved are in Africa, the Canaries - which are Spanish, Maderia and French islands in the Caribbean, plus some on the Pacific.

For trade purposes, Brussels recognizes the bananas from these places as EU products and in 1992 set levels of subsidies for their prices.

Around the same time, the US 'won' its banana war in central America and banana production has cranked up there. Then everybody got together and created the World Trade Organisation - which is dedicated to suppressing all subsibies deemed to distort trade.

Given the scale of banana production in the Americas, the US producers are the strongest and as such are able to force the world banana price to the floor. This costs Brussels ever more to subsibize 'community' production.

Brussels agreed to pay the difference for 850,000 tons of 'community' bananas and at the same time agreed to allow 2.5 million tons of 'dollar' bananas to enter the area. Since the price of 'dollar' bananas is about two francs a kilo as against a kilo price of four or five francs for bananas from Martinique, the EU subsidy costs European taxpayers 1.3 billion francs a year.

On top o this, the Germans prefer the taste of 'dollar' bananas, which sets them at odds with France. If a recent WTO report results in an official sanction againt the subsidies, then the 'lungs' of Martinique will run out of air - and the efforts to create cash crops for export in some African countries will turn to dust. The small planters cannot compete with the banana kings of the American fruit companies.