The Battle for Paris, Part 44

A small bistro in the Rue Galande in the Quartier Latin.

Whoopee! Cash Is Back!

Paris:- Sunday, 28. May 2000:- Sometime - when? - yesterday probably or maybe today - the bigwigs of the Paris section of the RPR party gathered together and selected Philippe Sequin as their candidate for the election for mayor of Paris in 2001.

The sitting mayor, Jean Tiberi, also a member of the RPR party, either was not invited to put up his own name at the meeting or chose not to attend it at all.

Since Jean Tiberi continues to consider himself a candidate for re-election, he is steering a course that could lead to his exclusion from the RPR party - since it obviously cannot promote two candidates for the mayor's office.

Two investigating judges who have been working on an investigation into election fraud in Paris for the past five years, are expected to go into action 'before summer.'

Investigators have interviewed hundreds of real voters who have been surprised to learn that they have been put on electoral lists in two arrondissements where they do not reside.

Police think they have detected 859 phantom voters in the 3rd and a little more than 7700 in the 5th. While most of these will face no consequences, those who may have instigated the fraud will be under the magnifying glasses of the judges.

The investigation was sparked off by the 'Green' party - Les Verts - and they have been comparing their list with the one complied by police investigators. The Greens think the police list is 125 names short for the 3rd arrondissement alone.

They want to compare voter's addresses with those on income tax returns, but this has been refused so far.

Armored-car employees finally reached a settlement with their employers, and are now busily trucking new cash from the Banque de France to banks - and hauling used cash back from businesses.

As their strike ends, various other strikes have also ended - which has left the way clear for new groups to stage walkouts, slowdowns and other actions.

The beginning of the week will see reduced traffic on SNCF rail lines in the Paris area and throughout France.

For the first time in a very very long time, the budget of the Securité Sociale is in balance and the government could not help itself from rejoicing about this last week.

The way the system works in France, in general, is the ill person pays in cash for medical services in advance. Then a claim is placed with the Securité Sociale, and the fraction - or 100 percent - that is reimbursable, is paid back.

At the moment, with a balanced budget, about 12 million claims for reimbursement are late, and this has been a general tendency for the past year.

The Securité Sociale treats about a billion claims a year. Three million residents receive free medical care, with a potential six million to be added.

In two recent polls, the French indicated that they don't trust the confidentiality of the Internet, especially in areas where they have to put personal information online.

This fear is considerably reduced when those polled have had some experience with email and the Web. All the same, both non-users are users want more security and guarantees that personal information will be protected.

For 1999, the police only registered about 4000 complaints involving cybercrime.

Meanwhile, over at the good old Minitel, police have uncovered a massive fraud, that seems have been taking in two to five million francs per month for its leading operator alone.

Certain Minitel numbers, such as the prefix '3617,' are billed by France Télécom at 5.57 francs per minute. Of this amount, the national phone company keeps 91 centimes.

So all it takes is some clever people with a server, a little trick stuff and some accomplices - and a whole bunch of Minitel terminals connected non-stop to the number in question - to run up big bills pretty quickly.

The surface idea was to offer household appliances and travellers' cheques as prizes to those who stayed connected for long periods of time. Right from the start, the telephone receipts exceeded the value of the 'prizes' by factors of three or four.