Friends in Paris

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34131, 19 April 1976, Page 1

Friends in Paris

(From BRUCE MORRIS. London correspondent of "The Press”)

LONDON, April 18. After some “pretty blunt talking,” the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) left Paris for South Korea on Saturday, with two new friends marked in his book of contacts. The names were the two he wanted —President Giscard d’Estaing and the Prime Minister (Mr Jacques Chirac). He gained them not by subtle diplomacy but rather through mutual respect as the talks heated up. “There was no sense in coming all the way over here

and then pussy-footing about,” said Mr Muldoon. “There was some very blunt talking . . . but it was friendly.” He described President d’Estaing, whom he had met on an earlier visit when both men held portfolios of finance, as “a nice bloke.” And Mr Chirac, whom he was meeting for the first time, was “a very, very good fellow,” Mr Muldoon said. ‘Close rapport’ “I found him very, very easy to talk to and we very quickly had a close rapport,” he said. “I was most imCressed ... he seems to me to e someone who could be a close friend of New Zealand in that his response to the remarks I made to him were genuinely helpful, and I think he was being perfectly frank.” Mr Chirac, he said, was “disposed to being helpful in getting some continuing arrangements for New Zealand farming produce which is reasonable from our point of view and capable of being accommodated inside the Community.” President d’Estaing had told him that France had finished its atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific — “naturally,” Mr Muldoon said later, “we must accept the word of the President.” Mr Muldoon also managed to find the time to give the Secretary-General of the O.E.C.D. a piece of his mind, but it apparently did not achieve very much. “The 0.E.CJ).,” said Mr Muldoon, “still does not have a full appreciation of New Zealand’s problems in the field of agriculture.” Away from the politics of the visit, Mr Muldoon continued to attract plenty of attention, even if not from the French press, which was more interested in the fact that President Sadat had recently left Paris, and that President Mobutu, of Zaire,

had just arrived. There were also newsier happenings on the Left Bank, where students and the police were battling it out. Six Paris journalists did turn up for a press conference, but the questions were innocuous—and ,Mr Muldoon had answered them all before. The colour and ceremony of the visit was provided by a fleeting visit to the Arc de Triomphe, where Mr Muldoon walked through a long impressive line of guards to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He then stood to attention in the bitterly cold wind in front of a dozen proud war veterans as a big, brass band charged into "God Defend New Zealand” and the “Marsellaise.” Ringed round the Arc de Triomphe, a healthy distance away, hundreds of tourists looked on excitedly, with their cameras clicking. Tour buses stopped in the strangest of places, adding to the havoc which was caused when Mr Muldoon’s party was guided to the great monument by the usual collection of police cyclists.Paris in the spring Nobody seemed to know precisely what they were watching, but one tour leader, intent on setting himself up as an expert on such matters, asserted that it was a regular Good Friday exercise. He was wrong, of course, but his party did not care. They were there to see Paris in the spring and, as far as they were concerned, the ceremony was part of the package.” On his last night in Paris, the official party went out on the town — to dinner with the New Zealand Ambassador (Mr McArthur) at the exclusive Peniche lie de France Restaurant, and then on to the “Crazy Horse” night club. It was just the tonic Mr Muldoon needed after a gruelling first week on his five nation tour.