Monsieur High Rise

In the increasingly specialized realm of international finance, Jean-Claude Aaron has scratched a big niche; he calls himself a constructeur-promoteur.

Fellow Frenchmen rather grudgingly call him "the father of the tower," because of his role in building the Maine-Montparnasse Tower, the most controversial Parisian structure since M. Eiffel's spindly folly. It is Europe's tallest (686 ft.) and costliest ($235 million) office building; last month its shops and boutiques opened, and its office space is already 90% taken.

The ambitious project had been stalled for a decade--until the developer, the U.S.'s Collins Tuttle & Co., in 1969 recognized that only a well-connected Frenchman could sweep away the bureaucratic snarls and inspire the confidence of timid French financiers. The firm took on Aaron, the president of a small bank, as co-developer. Aristocratic, war-decorated Aaron, 57, steered the project through a thicket of government regulations. He also helped to stitch together an all-French syndicate of 40 banks, insurance companies and pension funds to finance it. Aaron not only received a fee for his services but also will share in the building's profits; he declines to say what his total will be.

The building's unrelieved ugliness and monstrous scale have prompted French editorialists, architects and private citizens to rage against it. Partly in response to the public outcry, the Municipal Council has imposed a height limitation of 80 ft. on all new construction in the city. Disagreeing, Aaron says: "Either we want to keep Paris as a museum or we want Paris to live." Now, as a member of a mostly French group that includes the Chase Manhattan Bank, Aaron is negotiating to develop an eight-acre site in the heart of Boston.

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