A sunny place for shady people By Eric Margolis September 3, 2000 MONACO - August on the French Riviera is a madhouse. Millions of vacationers descend on the Cote d-Azur, blitzing Cannes, Nice, St Tropez, and Monaco in a sort of reverse D-Day. Here in Monaco, a tiny theme-park of ultra-wealth and rampant extravagance, (only tourists call it `Monte Carlo'), sidewalks are packed with the Riviera's newest nouveaux-riches, shady Russians, sporting thick gold Rolex watches and cheesy peroxide girlfriends on wobbly spike heels. Plus entire tribes of wealthy but confused bedouins from Arabia; frighteningly overweight American tourists in short pants and baseball hats; bus loads of penniless Slovenes and Poles, gawking like children at unattainable toys; gypsies from across Europe, attracted by rich pickings; pink-faced Britons, infuriated, as always, by the arrogance of the French; a few timid Japanese, further unnerved by their by now flaccid yen. Sun-bathers are packed like sardines onto the Riviera's skinny, pebbly beaches. Traffic jams stretch from Marseilles to the Italian border at Menton. Evil maritime pollution washes in from Italy. Yachts the size of the `Graf Spee' and stately Rolls-Royces wage a Darwinian struggle for space in the Cote d'Azur's impossibly congested harbors and streets. Berths and parking spots are worth more than human life. The only way to find a parking space in Monaco is to buy a parked car - and you can bet it will be an Aston-Martin or Rolls Corniche. In St Tropez, epicenter of the August saturnalia, war has erupted between `grands-millionaires,' who fly into the hideously congested port on their private helicopters, and `petits-millionaires' who hate the chopper noise. They, poor lambs, have to face the 2-hr traffic jam from the autoroute to `St. Trop' in their lowly Ferraris, Porsches and Mercedes. Europe's most beautiful women, in microchip-sized bikinis, and their wealthy pursuers or providers, lunch languidly at the renowned `Club 55.' Down the beach at the `Red Sail,' besotted young British stock brokers expend some of their multi-million annual bonuses on champagne fights with magnums of Dom Perignon. Equally plastered, chunky Russian `business consultants' in crew cuts and stripped Spetsnaz commando shirts - who look like they can't decide whether to kiss or kill you - belt out ballads of old Muscovy, a bottle of French `champanski' in each calloused hand, One meets all sorts of interesting characters in tax-haven Monaco, which Somerst Maughm aptly called `a sunny place for shady people.' I was invited to a most interesting dinner there by two prominent Arab businessmen, one a friend of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and the other an intimate of Libyan `Leader,' Muammar Khadaffi. As we dined on exquisite roasted lamb and crispy rice with yogurt, I learned from my well-connected hosts that Saddam has vowed to get big-time revenge on the disco-dancing Kuwaitis. He's just waiting for the right moment. A very nasty plan is already in the works, it seems. A surprise Scud-missile attack by Saddam on Cannes' night-clubs and casinos, I mused, would probably wipe out most of Kuwait's hard-working royal family. Readers of this column may recall that an enraged Saddam invaded Kuwait after its rude Crown Prince told the Iraqi leader to `kiss my camel's hump,' or something similar. >From my Libyan host, I learned the astounding fact that Libya's `Guide,' Muammar Khadaffi, recently proclaimed his very favorite foreign leader is..wait for it.Bill Clinton! Khadaffi recently expressed his profound sadness that Clinton could not run for a third term. `Clinton is America's best president of all time,' Khadaffi was quoted as declaring. Either Khadaffi is being fiendishly clever by wanting to destroy Great Satan American by wishing a third Clinton term on the long-suffering republic, or he is as wacky as some people claim. I wondered what Clinton's Hollywood backers would say if they knew he was Khadaffi's main man. Could Monica have been a secret emissary between the Oval Office pantry and Muammar's tent? Al Gore better pray that he's not named Libya's `Man of the Year.' Back to the Riviera. There's trouble in paradise. A very wealthy friend says she's scared to leave heavily-policed Monaco. `I'll be bopped on the head and all my jewels stolen.' No joke. The Cote d'Azur has become the Cote criminelle. You are warned to always lock car doors. Luxury cars are routinely held up at gunpoint at red lights. Europe's new open borders have made the Riviera a summer Mecca for the continent's pickpockets, burglars, and thieves. A lady told me all four houses she owns on the Riviera had been robbed in the past year. Homeowners live behind high walls, security systems, steel bars, and nazi dogs. I even met an entrepreneur who delivers savage dogs to houses at night by van and picks them up in the morning. The French cops are not much friendlier. I stopped to ask directions in my politest French from two CRS elite motorcycle policemen. The first glared at me in outrage that I would have the audacity to address him. The second, `What the hell does this guy want?' Number one: `He's actually asking me directions!' Number two: `Tell him we're not from here and to f.k off! Service with a smile, that's the Riviera in August. Copyright: E. Margolis, September 2000 "War at the Top of the World" - The struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet - by Eric Margolis is available at major book outlets and online in both the U.S. and Canada - recently reviewed in The Economist as "his account of recent warfare in Asia's highest mountains is both gripping and instructive." 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