Paae Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, May 8, 1976 1 I I %, TE MCHIAN0AIY^Sturay1May8,19764 Fran coise Giroud: Fe~~ t 'yrechs I xcrp/s of Francs (tuoud's ut/ siuwer / ie Iuus her auslbsograpiht "Ive' Yon My Word'. By ELAINE FLETCHER FRANCOISE GIROUD has been in this country only a few hours when the early morning press conference and interviews begin to get under way. A former journalist, she seems more nervous before the ten or so reporters than she will addressing the University Commencement audience the following day. Her hands tremble as she accepts a citation from International Women's Year, honoring her for being the first woman to hold the title of Secretary of State on the Condition of Women - a French cabinet post created by President net pout in 1974. "It was really a victory. Blecause we can't speak at all about a woman's situation if they have no right to do what they want with their own bodies." Ftr Giroud the issue has always held prsonal as well as political implications, having once sought an abortion-unsuccess- fully-as the Nazis invaded Paris, and she, unwed and pregnant, was forced to flee to the south. But it was not as a spokesperson on abortion or other women's issues that Giroud first became nationally known iit France. She made her name in another way - as the co-founder and editor of the well known French newsmagazine, lEx- press, a publication similar to Newsweek. Although dubbed with a government title The Saturday Magazine And indeed Giroud is a perfect example of the "self-made" woman. As a poor young girl she quit school at age fourteen to work as a stenographer, a fate from which she was rescued by the well known French movie director, Jean Allgret, who hired her to work as a script girl. Giroud worked her way up in the business to be- come a scriptwriter and the first woman assistant film director. And she worked for the renowned Jean Renoir. When the Nazis invaded Paris, Giroud fled to the soith of France where she wrangled her way into reporting for the big French daily newspaper, Paris-Soir. She was imprisoned for working with the resistance, and spent a year in a Nazi concentration camp. After the war she co-founded two of the most successful French magazines now operating in France: first Elle, a woman's magazine which she became bored with, then l'Express. ]RUT HER FIERY past seems only to have had a reverse effect on the personality of Giroud. She is slight of build, softspoken and impeccably dressed. She laughs easily, maintaining only a casual reserve that she herself characterizes as typically French. One quickly gets the sense that French women in general are perhaps more suspicio'ts of feminism than their American counerparts. And in fact Giroud refuses to label herself as one. "Feminism in France has a very aggres- sive connotation in the sense of the cas- tration of men, of hate of men, and I don't hate men at all," explains Giroud. "In America you have a sort of revolt, women feel cheated. We have none of this feeling in France." She does not blame woman's condition on men, but says, "The major responsibility of assuming respon- sibility lays in the woman's hands. Women can do everything but they don't choose to do it." Giscard d'Estaing. "My English is not so good that I will try to make a speech, but I will try to answer all your questions," she responds, standing up for just a moment to reach a microphone that is almost as tall as herself. But slowly the foreign words, the English words begin to flow. The facts and figures are at her fingertips as her confidence ebbs back. She begins fielding questions on a for the first time in her life, she did not go looking for the job. "When you are a journalist you are the voice of opinion, the voice of little people- not the voice of power. But to be on the government is to be on the other side. I don't like it frankly, but it is interesting," she comments. Yet she has learned to use her jounralistic experience to the best ad- vantage in her new position. "To plant the topic with which she has become all too seeds of imagination - that's the most R EGARDLESS OF definitions, her con- familiar by now - women. important thing I could do," comments cerns for French women remain much Giroud, "I speak on the T.V. and on the the same as those much-discussed feminist "' BORTION? There are now no restric- radio. I write pieces. topics in the U.S. Since her cabinet appoint- 'ions in the first twelve weeks," says ment in 1974, Giroud has worked to up- Giroud of the new liberalized law for which "But it is against my nature to be on the grade equal pay statutes, reform marriage she was instrumental in winning accept- side of power, because all my life I was laws, increase day-care opportunities for nce just after being appointed to the cabi- not." working women and career education for young female students. But sh proud of a new law which assure women of continued dependency payments-a concept which many feminists strongly object to. "I plead for the economic ind of women without which you really a free person. And I say I want to be beaten by your hus times a day, then that's another But you can't stay with a man b can't pay your rent." When you are 0 job you are the voice of o the voice of the little - not the voice of pow to be in the governmei be on the other side. For the French perhaps more Americans, women have alwa: several distinctly different rolO culture. "Men make a clear cut between their wives (duty) and th (pleasure)," writes Giroud in biography, "It was as though d an angel for the angel in the beast for the beast, all of which a way of denying women their complexity." Yet despite the economic and advances of certain exceptional recent years, this sexual dual really changed, Giroud maintains "It's very difficult to change th because it has its root in man's A LTHOUGH the percentage women in elite professional higher when compared to men t United States, the middle an classes still view more public liberated roles for women, withl picion, says Giroud. "The workers have a very di People give them orders and h over them. Then at home th dominate over their wives." & feels that most French woe oppressed by men inside the family. "In their personal relati are very important. The real pr the social field where they do part. Women have alacays co purse and the household more U.S., bit publicly they have aba a very subservient role," adds Girud's, former Paris Time ,ua respondent Charles Eisendrath. JT IS THE YOUNG which ye to give Giroud the most satir hope for the future of women.