To Paris on Business

In the warming atmosphere that has drawn Eastern and Western Europe closer, one frigid holdout has been Bulgaria. Now, the tiny Balkan nation is also thawing a bit. Last week Todor Zhivkov, 55, Premier of Bulgaria and the brisk, burly first secretary of its Communist Party, made his first official trip to Western Europe, spending three days on the French Riviera and three more in Paris with President Charles de Gaulle.

Zhivkov obviously means business. To bring in foreign currency, his government has relaxed visa requirements, and Western tourists are flocking in. In the capital of Sofia, where the population has almost tripled (to 800,000) since 1940, new Western-style apartment buildings are sprouting, and Western cigarettes and liquor are becoming plentiful. Three weeks ago, Bulgaria even staged an international trade fair, buying more than $45 million worth of Western wares.

Much of that business went to France, which has become one of Bulgaria's biggest trade partners in the West. French companies also plan to build a synthetic fiber plant, a cosmetic factory, and an auto-tire factory in Bulgaria; and last month Renault signed a $50 million deal for an auto plant 100 miles east of Sofia. Last April, after Bulgaria and France signed a new agreement that will triple trade between the two countries, French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville visited Sofia and invited Zhivkov to visit France. Zhivkov was happy to oblige.

On the Riviera he went shopping in Saint-Paul-de-Vence's steep, stony streets, tried his hand at lawn bowling, and like Yves Montand and Simone Signoret--wined and dined at the Colombe d'Or. Then it was on to Paris for a round of wreath-layings, ceremonials, and the more important business of lunching and chatting with De Gaulle, who knew just how to warm the heart of his Eastern neighbor.

"Our period of history," De Gaulle said, "is that of a world in movement, of a world which disapproves of and is alarmed by the conflict and the escalation conducted in Southeast Asia by foreign intervention, of a world which has no future except in peace." As its piece de resistance, De Gaulle's government signed two more agreements covering an exchange of students and teachers, of ballet, concert and other cultural groups, and technical study teams that will explore, among other things, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

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