French Comic Sparks Drive to Feed Poor : Sharp-Tongued Satirist Coluche Draws Support From Left, Right

About 60,000 poor people a day are getting free meals across France at centers called “Restaurants of the Heart”--the idea of the country’s best-known comic, the earthy, often coarse-mouthed Coluche.

Coluche says the idea for the project, which got under way in late December, grew out of his own memories of childhood poverty and also from complaints that aid was only going to Africa.

Using his extensive contacts in the entertainment world and his daily show on French network radio, Coluche marshaled thousands of volunteers and began collecting millions of francs in donations.

Wine, Eggs, Hamburgers

Thousands of bottles of Beaujolais wine were purchased or donated, tons of hamburgers were amassed, eggs came in by the railroad boxcar, and trucks full of bread, apples and cold meats arrived. An African airline flew in pineapples, and some Paris restaurants pledged a whole day of free meals for poor people.

Coluche says the food centers have expanded from 15 at the outset to 26, and the number of daily free meals has grown from 15,000 to 60,000.

The project is private, volunteer and bipartisan, with show business personalities such as actor Yves Montand joining in.

But the inspiration and driving force comes from Coluche, and to many he is a most unlikely philanthropist.

Controversial, Vulgar

His real name is Michel Colucci. As Coluche, he is controversial and often vulgar, an acid-tongued satirist on radio and television and a cult figure for many French youths.

He scandalized politicians of all parties in 1981 when he “ran for president,” poking fun at the system and the serious candidates.

“He’s the only one capable of doing this because of his impact on people,” said Alexandre Lederman, 20, student coordinator of the project. “The guy is a cultural phenomenon.”

Lederman and 30 students from a prestigious business school worked 17 hours a day organizing the project. Their 600 volunteers, mostly business and engineering students, set up 21 regional committees and even a branch in the Belgian capital, Brussels.

Private donations exceeded $600,000, including about $62,500 in start-up funds from Coluche’s own pocket.

Aid From Left, Right

Three Socialist Cabinet ministers gave office space, transportation and access to surplus food stocks, while former Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a center-rightist, helped make donations tax-deductible.

In 1984, Coluche and 35 other French artists cut a record to raise funds for famine in Ethiopia. Thousands of fans asked when they were going to sing for France. So this summer Coluche decided to launch the project to feed the poor.

Coluche oversees the program from a cluttered desk at the Paris-based Europe No. 1 radio station, dressed in his trademark orange-rimmed glasses and blue-and-white striped overalls.

“I was very poor as a kid myself,” Coluche says. “I had wooden shoes, the kind they gave you at City Hall, and a hand-out coat.

‘I Would Help Others’

“I thought that if I ever succeeded at something in life, I would help other people from time to time.”

Coluche started his career 12 years ago in French music halls and has since made his working-class image famous, poking fun at sacred institutions such as politics, the news media and the French language and breaking taboos on racism and immigrants.

He has made 15 movies, including a drama about the streets of Paris that won him France’s best-actor award in 1984. He has been decorated by the Ministry of Culture.

Accused of Assault

But he also has been accused of assaulting a woman journalist. He admitted on prime-time television that he once made love with a man. And recently he was convicted of insulting a police officer. The newspaper Le Monde poked fun at “St. Colucci of the Poor.”

Nevertheless, pledges of help pour in during his afternoon radio show.