Why the villagers of Chailly (pop. 304) want their ‘madame’ back

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 15

Why the villagers of Chailly (pop. 304) want their ‘madame’ back

By

JON SWAIN,

“Sunday Times,” London.

The sleepy little village of Chailly-en-Gatinais (pop. 340) is standing on its very Gallic right to have its own lady of pleasure. From pensioners downwards, to teen-agers, wives, and mothers, ranks have closed behind Nadia Guyader. a 38-year-old convicted prostitute. Even Monsieur the Mayor has taken her side in her battle with the law.

It is a Clochemerle-type incident that has amused the whole of France and brought fame to the people of the normally tranquil village, some 85 miles south of Paris. They insist that maintaining their own brothel is a traditional French right, just as it used to be at the turn of the century.

Chailly is in the departement of the Loiret, a staunchly conservative rural area, as French as Camembert cheese. There are a handful of houses, a quaint little church where a visiting priest says mass once a fortnight, ■ a war memorial lovingly preserved, a locksmith, a butcher, a rundown cafe — and the village’s brothel. Madame Guyader’s house, Aventura, faces- the cafe across the square and from the outside looks ordinary enough. But such was the flow- of visitors since she began entertaining in 1972 that she decided to invite a couple of prostitutes she knew from her Paris streetwalking days to join her in business. This, inevitably, attracted the unwelcome atten-

tion of the police. Prostitution is not banned in France, but soliciting and living off immoral earnings are: by allowing the girls to work with her, Nadia was in breach of the law. In November, 1975. she was convicted of running a brothel. The court gave her a three-month suspended jail "Sentence and withdrew her bar licence. Within a year, she was plying her trade again. She says there was no reasonable alternative because, try as she would, the authorities refused without reason to renew- her bar licence. Prostitution. she says, constituted her sole source of income. The good people of Chailly approve of her. They dote on her five-year-old daughter, Virginie. They appreciate the fact that Madam Guyader made a point of not seducing the men of the village, insisting that her clients should come from outside. In many ways the village held her in Higher esteem than was enjoyed by the village priest who had died a few years before. “He was far worse,” says a 62-year-old woman neighbour. "He lived with a woman, which shocked me much more. “But I am full of admiration for Nadia. She worked so hard. Each passe lasted eight minutes, except with the very old men. I counted, one night. She had as many

as 12 clients. I ask you, how did she manage it?" So when the Orleans vice squad forced their way into the Aventura at nine o'clock one evening two summers ago and arrested Madam Guyader. the village was in uproar. The police had been watching her establishment lor three months. One young flic, whose zeal suggests he is destined for promotion, even constructed a secret tree-top hide. He used to shin up the tree and install himself before the village awoke at dawn, and only came down last thing at night. From this vantage-point, he told the course, he was able to see all the goings-on in Nadia’s first-floor bedroom. He zealously jotted down her clients’ car numbers so they could eventually be traced. The wheels of justice turn slowly in rural France, and Nadia went on trial only last September, more than a year after her arrest. By this time she had already spent four months in jail and everyone in the village was sure that she would escape with a light sentence. But the magistrates took a dim view of Chailly’s brothel and were unusually harsh. They gave her a four-year suspended prison sentence, fined her the equivalent of $lOOO. withdrew her voting

rights, and ordered her to forfeit the Aventura, valued at 300.000 francs ($60,000). More serious still, they banned her from living in the . Loiret and from the seven ’ neighbouring departements for an indefinite period. Finally. they ordered her to hand over what one might regard as the tools of her traoe; her four-poster bed and her wardrobe.

Within hours the people of Chailly. led by Jean-Michel Choquet, a local railway worker, had established a support committee for the village’s fille de joie while Nadia's lawyer lodged an appeal. The committee, meeting weekly, rapidly collected 150 signatures for a petition which it presented to the judges. It bombarded them and the local M.P. with letters of protest. The village’s M.P. wrote that, while he could not intervene in a case of prostitution, his constituents had impressed on him that Madam Guyader was a “person of great human qualities.”

Three weeks ago the Orleans appeal court reduced Nadia's sentence to two years jail, suspended for three years. It also decided to lift the controversial order banning her from the departements around the Loiret, but it upheld that part of the sentence that banned-her from the Loiret and Chailly. The next step is for Nadia’s lawyers and the support committee to bring the case

before the Cour de Cassation in Paris. France's top court of appeal. It has an enormous backlog and will not be able to review the case for at least 18 months. Meanwhile, Nadia can continue to live at the Aventura in Chailly. When I visited her she advised me to call at the front door and not the side entrance, otherwise I might be arrested.

“I am overwhelmed by my neighbours’ kindness and support." she says. “It is rare for people to put their names to a case involving prostitution like mine or to allow them to be publicised. "The girls who worked with me always did so entirely of their own free will. I never exploited them and even persuaded one or two to give up hooking altogether. I know I’m no angel,, out why do the police pick on me in little Chailly when there are 30,000 professional prostitutes working in the big cities for pimps, many under duress, in sordid conditions in squalid hotels and tenement blocks?”

Madam Guyader’s support committee has begun a battle for her with the local licensing authority to obtain a permit to run a grocery store, which would enable her to abandon being a goodtime girl for ever. But then, the postman came bearing bad tidings. In another blow from officialdom, the in-come-tax authorities are demanding 100,000 francs in back taxes.