“Don’t go and put your foot in it and talk about crisis in the palaces of the Côte d'Azur. Such a word is not to be comprehended in these ‘grands hotels’ strung along between Monte Carlo and Cannes. The flow of money here encounters no obstacle. Luxury is thriving and in the best of health.” Thus, roughly translated, runs the beginning of a main article in Le Monde (30th July 1977) dealing with the excellent takings of these “palaces”.
For example, the takings of the Negresco in Nice in 1976 were 12 million francs. Expected takings for 1977: 20 million francs—getting on for double. In case this is mistaken for a fortnightly-package hotel enjoying exceptional popularity, let’s put the matter clear by quoting M. Michel Dubes, the reception chief, who says that his clients never ask about the cost beforehand even though what he terms the “most ordinary” suite (not a paltry bedroom) is a basic 1,000 francs a day. This is about £125 a day give or take a little here and there (exactitudes which do not exercise the minds of M. Dube’s clients).
Because nothing attracts the rich as much as their own costly milieu, the Negresco is overbooked at times. In the unique and beautiful salon Louis XIV the ceiling is brightened with hosts of cherubs and naked beauties derived from a convent in the Savoy Alps (the nuns must have been ill-at-ease with those unadorned creatures over their heads). Le Monde explains how every whim of the client is conscientiously attended to, for a price. One chappie who arrives punctually each year will not tolerate an iota of light in his suite, and—damn the expense!—an immense effort is initiated annually to transform the suite into something resembling an anti-atomic shelter or the depths of a coal mine.
But enough of this . . . Why should Le Monde write in satirical vein about people and conditions whose perpetuation it wants, since it is a newspaper akin to the French ruling class as The Times is to the British capitalists? Whatever the reason, to Socialists it is an old story: the contrast between the poverty of the workers and the riches of those who own the means of living.
In Italy you may travel for mile upon mile through the dross, dust and shambles of working-class quarters (no blown-up photographs of these in the tourist office), and suddenly run into a miraculously different world. Say, that of Chianciano Terme, where Italian capitalists try to resuscitate themselves by taking the local mineral waters. Spotless cleanliness, shady boulevards lined with acacia and lime, cool exotic gardens tended by a seeming army of gardeners, fountains, splendid hotels and apartments, shops whose prices have a giddy effect on those accustomed to Marks and Sparks—and, of course, the guardians of the law in resplendent white, making sure that the wealthy can go about their pleasures unhindered.
This contrast is repeated throughout Europe and elsewhere. Why is it so? Socialists have long argued that there is nothing strange or immoral about the enormous disparities of wealth and life-style between the capitalist and the worker. They are the inevitable result of class ownership of the means of production. The capitalists derive their enormous wealth from the exploitation of the working class, the production of goods for sale at a profit on the market.
It can be stressed further that the lavish spending n the Côte d'Azur is but the tip of the iceberg. So long as the working class of every country support capitalism they are securing a dolce-vita life-style for their masters—and their own poverty.
Max Judd
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