France's Stars on The Dole; Even Rich Actors Collect Unemployment
In France, art is to suffering as acting is to collecting unemployment. Under France's highly developed system of social welfare, it is not only struggling actors (and unemployed waiters) who can make ends meet on unemployment. The most successful of the country's flourishing thespian community - the French Clint Eastwoods, Meryl Streeps and Spike Lees - can too.</br></br>And often they do, earning up to $3,000 a month in unemployment payments. By contrast, the top payment in the United States is rarely over $300 a week.</br></br>Now France is wondering if social justice has its limits. The peeved president of Assedic, a deficit-ridden organization charged with doling out the dole, has caused a stir by publicizing the names of French stars who collect unemployment when they're not working under contract.</br></br>Michel Blanc, star of the film "Uranus," which was recently released in the United States, received about $3,000 a month in unemployment from March 1990 to last July. Nathalie Baye, a French actress who was in the film "The Return of Martin Guerre," among many others, received about $100 a day for not working between August 1990 and last March. The British-turned-French actress and singer Jane Birkin claimed retroactive payments for a year and a half. And on and on.</br></br>"The unemployment system for temporary contractors in entertainment has been perverted," said Gruson in one of several interviews with French media in which he revealed the names of stars and their unemployment claims.