FRANCE: Too Busy!

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In Great Britain the honorary president of a vast pyramid of women's war organizations is Queen Elizabeth, whose wardrobe contains a choice assortment of female uniforms (TIME, Oct. 9). Last week in Paris petite Eve Curie, newly installed as Chief of the Feminine Section of the Ministry of Information, made it very plain to the press that most French women, unlike their British sisters, have no time for flossy uniforms, showy organizations. From the French point of view, the fact that Britain still has less than 1,000,000 men under arms, whereas France has more than 5,000,000, means that as yet British women simply have no idea of what war can mean in feminine sacrifice and struggle to support home and children while father holds the Maginot Line.

Unlike London, Paris has no beauteous peers' daughters standing by their Rolls-Royces in trick uniforms waiting for statesmen to emerge from Government buildings and be whisked away. There are no French sailorettes like the pert British "Wrens." At French air fields no uniformed female auxiliaries lunch gaily with pilots just back from showering Germany with leaflets. The wives of French bigwigs, from Mme Albert Lebrun down, simply do such war work as they can, are notably chary of becoming "honorary president" of this or that.

Just after World War II broke, several socialite groups sought the patronage of Mme Gamelin, wife of the French Generalissimo, and one, reputedly, received this characteristic note: "My wife excuses herself for being too busy to reply personally to your request that she be honorary president of your organization, and asks me to present her regrets. (Signed) Maurice Gamelin."

22¢. Today almost every French woman has her own personal family war work to do because she has a brother, fiance, husband, father or uncle in the Army who needs cigarets, socks, a sweater, favorite articles of food, regular letters of affectionate encouragement and such efforts as she can make toward attending to his neglected affairs. Thousands of French women are holding their husbands' jobs today as bus conductors, mail carriers, taxi drivers, and in stores and factories.

A woman dependent on a husband at the front receives 26¢ per day from the State if she lives in Paris, only 15¢ in the provinces. In Paris the allowance per dependent child is 12&3162;, elsewhere 10¢, and a soldier at the front gets 22¢ daily pocket money.

The typical French soldier's wife was going a bit hungry last week, scrimping to send her man all she possibly could. One Mme Jeanne Durand, who has a job paying $50 monthly and has been sending her husband nothing, was sensationally hauled into court on his demand from the Maginot Line that she be made to live up to the "mutual faithfulness, aid and support" clause in their marriage contract. Setting a legal precedent, the court ordered Mme Durand to pay $2.25 per month toward settling the canteen bill of her drafted husband.