A New Kind of Crime: Nuclear Murder...

A New Kind of Crime: Nuclear Murder...

The criminal world in France is not standing still. The latest craze in this field is: nuclear murder. At a nuclear reactor near Strasbourg, one of the workers recently placed [illegible] a radioactive ingot under the seat of the boss's car.

Fortunately, the astonished manager discovered the “original gift” right at the beginning of the intended treatment. The investigators remark that, in fact, while moving the ingot, the vengeful worker himself must also have received a sizeable dose of radiation.

An original gift arrived by post at the offices of the newspaper “Le Progrès de Lyon.” The senders: an ecological organization fighting nuclear development and nuclear tests. The gift: a radioactive plate. One of several plates stolen by the organization, which threatens to distribute them as personal gifts to people “whom it wishes to honour.”

Thus, quite a few people in France today have exchanged the classic French fear that someone is putting horns on them for the modern fear that someone is planting radiation on them; good night, and take a good look under your pillow.

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Jean-Jacques Wanted All the Chocolate for Himself

Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the Radical wunderkind of French politics, now, after losing his seat as a deputy and his standing in his party, and embarking on a desperate battle for a place in the European Parliament—turns out to have been a “programmed” wunderkind.

That, at any rate, is what his no less ambitious cousin, Jean-Claude Servan-Schreiber, who ran the highly prestigious weekly “L'Express” with him and also tried his hand at politics, claims in an autobiographical book just published in Paris.

It was Joseph Schreiber, secretary to Chancellor Bismarck and a descendant of a famous rabbinical family, who decided, in 1870, after the Prussian invasion of France, to tie his fate to that of the defeated country and founded the illustrious dynasty—the French “House of Kennedy.” Servan was the name Émile, Jean-Jacques's father, used to sign his books and articles. His son Jean-Jacques was destined for greatness from an early age.

When the Second World War broke out, Madame Servan-Schreiber informed her children: “From now on, all the sweets and chocolate are for Jean-Jacques, so that he will be strong, because one day he will be president of the United States of Europe...” While the father intended his son to become an “upright man,” Mother was much more explicit in her declarations: “You will always be first—and I shall do everything to make sure that you are...”

And so, “when they first put us on bicycles,” Jean-Claude complains, “Jean-Jacques's mother stood behind him and demanded: Ride faster than your cousin! You have to beat him!..”

The war brought the two together in Casablanca in 1943. Both had fled to Spain to fight the Nazis. Jean-Jacques leaves there for the United States to learn to fly and returns to France in July 1945. “The war,” notes the cousin who lost the bicycle race, with biting sarcasm, “had ended two months earlier...”

Even when the two were due to run “L'Express” together, Jean-Jacques came, on the eve of the first issue's appearance, to patriarch Servan-Schreiber, Jean-Claude's father—and the owner—with grave news:

“The editorial staff refuses to work under Jean-Claude's supervision. They question his intellectual ability.” The elder Mr. Servan-Schreiber flatly refuses to have his son removed from the business. Jean-Jacques goes to speak to the editorial staff, and, wonder of wonders, he manages to settle the matter in a quarter of an hour.

Years later, the cousin learned that there had never been any “editorial revolt” at all. The conclusion is clear. Jean-Jacques simply wanted all the “chocolate” for himself.

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Philosophical History at “La Closerie des Lilas”

[illegible] at “La Closerie des Lilas,” a café in Montparnasse, about them [illegible] whose adventure had just ended [illegible].

“We had a very interesting discussion about Kant before we got into bed.”

“He insisted that I go over whole chapters of Hegel with him and shouted with pleasure.”

“With Nietzsche he really turned into an animal...”

The “Irish coffee” suddenly takes on the taste of a liberation army. The elderly pianist switches to forgotten Gypsy melodies, and our spirits sink completely. Does anyone perhaps have a philosopher available for us for the night?

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A Mother's Day Gift—a Plane Ticket to Israel

What gift will you give on “Mother's Day” [illegible] this week? [illegible]

A gift that had been her lifelong dream. A plane ticket to Israel. [illegible] and meet her there. And just think, that[illegible] your mother has it [illegible].

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The Saudi Prince Restores France's Lost Honour

[illegible]

This time he is selling. [illegible] for sale the largest privately held collection of French furniture and objets d'art. He had intended to use them for his floating hotel—the well-known one planned for the magnificent “France.” But experts determined that the sea air would damage the collection.

Will the rare objects, then, get to breathe the air of their homeland again? For the time being, it seems that national pride, alas, will once again have to gnash its teeth in silence, while the wealthy of the nations of the world gleefully swoop down on the treasures of Monte Carlo. How far? How long?