France Seeks Asylum Nation for Duvalier

France searched Saturday for a country willing to take in Jean-Claude Duvalier, while the ousted Haitian dictator remained secluded in an old resort hotel on Lake Annecy in the French Alps.

Premier Laurent Fabius, campaigning in northern France for the March 16 parliamentary elections, told journalists: “In liaison with the United States, we have accepted his stay but only on condition that it be temporary. We are searching for a permanent asylum for him, an asylum other than France.”

Western diplomats were quoted as saying that a nation in French-speaking West Africa is considered Duvalier’s probable destination. No further details were given. At least two French-speaking African countries, Gabon and Morocco, have indicated that they would not welcome the Haitian.

Way to Ensure Departure

Fabius said that France had acted to prevent a bloodbath in Haiti and to make sure that Duvalier would leave his homeland.

It was clear Saturday that President Francois Mitterrand’s government had defused potential trouble by keeping Duvalier out of Paris.

A group of extreme leftists and Haitian exiles called a protest demonstration in the French capital against the government Saturday afternoon. One protester held up a hand-drawn cartoon that showed Mitterrand giving Duvalier a rose of welcome. “Shame to Mitterrand,” the sign said. But with Duvalier so far away from Paris, the turnout of no more than 300 people was feeble.

Although France is in the midst of an election campaign, one in which the governing Socialists are already in difficulty, according to polls, there was little negative comment from the opposition and almost none at all from the press. Former Premier Raymond Barre, a popular conservative who will probably run for president in 1988, said, “It is completely normal that large countries with interest in the Haitian situation should take the necessary steps to facilitate a change of regime.”

Duvalier, 34, who was flown Friday to Grenoble in southeastern France in a U.S. Air Force C-141 transport plane, looked very tired when he finally arrived Friday night in the town of Talloires, on Lake Annecy near the Swiss border. On one occasion, he opened the shutters of his window overlooking the water.

Luxury in Exile

The government took over the Abbaye, an 11th-Century Benedictine monastery transformed into a hotel, for Duvalier, his wife, Michele, and an entourage of 22 relatives and associates. Police kept journalists away Saturday from the four-star hostelry.

Joseph Burdeyron, the conservative mayor of Talloires, an exclusive and tiny resort town noted for its vistas and gourmet restaurants, complained angrily about the town’s new guest. “The presence of Mr. Duvalier has been imposed on us,” the 63-year-old mayor and dentist said. “We have absolutely not been consulted.”

“Sure,” he went on, “our area of Haute-Savoie is a land of welcome, but it is still necessary to know who we receive and who we protect.”

“We thought he’d go to a chateau closer to Paris,” another longtime resident, Leon Duval, told United Press International. “But we’re not really surprised he’s here. It doesn’t really make any difference to us.

‘Disgusting People’

“I’m happy that he is here because he has brought some action to these dead winter times,” he went on. “But it raises a lot of questions about having disgusting people in France. (It’s) part of French tradition to welcome refugees.”

It was not clear whether the French government would insist on Duvalier’s remaining in Talloires for his entire stay or whether it would let him move on to one of his four homes. Duvalier owns a chateau outside Paris, a Paris suburban apartment, a villa in Nice and an apartment in Monte Carlo.

Agence France-Presse, the French news service, quoted personnel of the hotel as telling them that chefs prepared a meal of chicken, salmon and salads for the Haitians at 1 a.m. (which was early evening, Haitian time).

The Duvaliers had a sauna and a whirlpool bath before they retired to their suite at 4:30 a.m. Four French gendarmes guarded the door, the French news agency said. Breakfast Saturday was high cuisine--lobsters and fish.