Coefficients for the Millions

Frenchmen last week were staring at the floor. A new law, aimed at bringing order and equity out of the chaos of French rentals, had just proclaimed that after Jan. 1 French floor space would be classified as "real," "useful" and "corrected." The law was drafted with clarity, system and thoroughness, qualities for which the French are famed. Also, the law was nuttier than an Alsatian fruit cake.

With Schedule I in hand, a tenant began by classifying his apartment. A three-room fifth-floor apartment in a fairly decent neighborhood would be rated as 3-a. With louder street noises, darker corridors and no stair carpeting, it dropped into 3-b. He then classified his rooms: "habitable" (nine square meters or more), "secondary" (at least seven square meters), and "annexes" (baths, toilets, closets). By multiplying this space by coefficients ranging from .6 to 1.0, depending on the classification of his rooms, he arrived at his total area of "useful floor space."

To get his "corrected floor space," the tenant multiplied his "useful floor space" by three sets of coefficients representing light, sunshine and view. He allowed 1.0 for a well-lit room, but "if half of its surface is in the shadow for a substantial part of the day," he scaled it down to .8. If he had a room overlooking a park or "a remarkable panorama," he charged himself 1.1, but reduced it if he could see only "a wide street or court or a stretch of grass at least 15 meters wide and without obstructions [not counting trees]." For a really super-duper view he boosted the factor to 1.3. (Cracked the Canard Enchaine, witty Paris weekly: "What's the coefficient for a view of Mistinguette's legs?")

The sunshine coefficient called for a special government decree which sent householders scuttling for compasses and calendars. "The figure for duration of useful sunshine," it read, "should be derived from the length of the longest day of the year (without clouds), counting the total period of sunshine into a room, including direct as well as indirect rays. Indirect rays are . . . those striking the face of a room at an angle of less than 15DEG and . . . include rays which do not penetrate a bay window of one meter in width . . ."

With his "corrected floor space" settled, the tenant turned to Schedule III and added up an arbitrary amount of floor space for "facilities and conveniences." A cold-water faucet in the hallway rated .25 square meters. Private flush toilets rated four square meters, non-flushing toilets only two. Adding up the "corrected" square meters of the three schedules and multiplying the sum by the fixed charge per meter, he arrived at his monthly rent.

To Left Bank students the law was a godsend. Three hundred of them set up shop in vacant classrooms, answered as many as 50 calls a day, mostly from addled landlords. Said one young philosophy major: "We get 125 francs an hour. At first we were slow, but now we can do a whole house in an hour and a half. Anyhow, it beats baby-sitting."

Many French tenants were distressed. Groaned one: "I'd sleep under an umbrella first."

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