"Les Femmes--Pouf!"

Greying, pompous, misogynous Monsieur Jules has been official barber to French parliamentarians for upwards of two decades. Last month, when he heard that women would sit for the first time in a French National Assembly, Jules resigned. "Les femmes," he sputtered. "Pouf!"

The Government's Chief of Protocol poufed back. Coiffuring was as necessary as barbering. Who was Jules to scorn such distinguished customers as Mme. Helene Lefaucheux, resistance organizer and Pars

Municipal Councilor; or Mme. Helena Solomon-Langevin, alumna of Oswiecim concentration camp; or Mme. Felix Eboue from overseas France, widow of the late great Negro Governor General of French Equatorial Africa? Last week he prevailed upon Jules to withdraw his resignation and to discuss a revolution-by-law in the Assembly's old-fashioned barbershop.

But Jules still sputtered: "I have no room for lady constituents. If the Chief of Protocol wants to add a hairdressing salon to my barbershop, I will not oppose it. But it is foolishness!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.