French Dance, Sing to Launch Birthday Fete

France’s biggest party in 200 years got off to a roaring start Thursday night with wild dancing in the streets, an inaugural performance in the stunning new “people’s” opera house at the Place de la Bastille and a nasty little tiff with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

As President Bush, French President Francois Mitterrand and 32 other world leaders watched from balcony seats at the costly and controversial new Bastille Opera, across the square from the site of the prison that was demolished at the start of the French Revolution in 1789, the orchestra broke into a rousing version of the “Marseillaise” to begin a program of selections from French operas, including George Bizet’s “Carmen” and Camille Saint-Saens “Samson and Dalila.”

100,000 Celebrants

Two hours after the early evening performance, after the 34 leaders and their 34 fleets of bullet-proof limousines and escort cars had finally departed, the Bastille Square filled with more than 100,000 celebrants. As rock music blared from a temporary stage erected next to the new opera, the cool night air filled with smoke from exploding firecrackers and sizzling sausages cooking on open grills.

By midnight, the square was too packed for anyone to truly dance, and the 200th birthday party had evolved into a kind of adolescent-style happening. Still, there were about 30,000 other bals populaires taking place all over France on the eve of Bastille Day where traditional dancing--tangos, polkas and waltzes--and accordion music could be found.

Today, Bastille Day, Parisians will be treated to the annual military parade down the Avenue des Champs Elysees as well as a wacky $15-million nighttime parade, featuring elephants, oil-can drummers and dancing bears, that was put together by eccentric French-American advertising man Jean-Paul Goude and rehearsed secretly on a French air force base.

The focus of events Thursday night was the Bastille Opera.

Critics have described the $400-million glass-and-concrete building, designed by Canadian architect Carlos Ott, as looking like a “ship in dry dock.” President Mitterrand is known to detest the design and prefers reading to music anyway. The new opera was at the center of an international controversy when music director Daniel Barenboim was fired in January.

15-Minute Ovation

But none of this seemed to matter Thursday night as Bush, his wife Barbara, and most of the other national leaders and their spouses joined in an enthusiastic 15-minute standing ovation for opera singers Placido Domingo, Barbara Hendricks, June Anderson and others who performed on the technologically advanced new stage.

As his gift to the new opera house, Bush presented Mitterrand with an original key to one of the cells at the Bastille Prison.

The key was originally given to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette, but since 1858 it has been the property of the Mount Vernon Ladies Assn. The association is lending the key to France for the Bicentennial.

At one point, many of the 2,700 people in the audience turned to applaud mitterrand, the 72-year-old french leader who is taking advantage of the bicentennial to show off several of his monumental building projects, including the opera, a $300-million pyramid addition at the louvre museum and a $500-million arche de la defense, which will be the main site of the seven-nation economic summit this weekend.

One world leader who did not appear to be having as much fun as the others was Britain’s Thatcher, who was met with boos and hostile whistles from the crowd on at least two occasions Thursday.

On the eve of her visit here Thatcher was interviewed by the newspaper Le Monde and a French television network. In her remarks, she managed to outrage the French government and much of the citizenry by saying that the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the centerpiece of the Bicentennial celebration, did not originate with the French.

“Certainly not,” the British leader said on the Antenne-2 network, “They date back much further than that. We have our own Great Charter (Magna Carta) of 1215 and the notion of human rights goes back to the ancient Greeks and even further.”

In the interview in Le Monde, Thatcher took a swipe at the extravagantly festive, self-congratulatory celebrations being staged by the French to honor the revolution.

“We had a peaceful revolution in 1688,” she said, “in which the Parliament imposed its will on the monarchy. We celebrated this event last year, but discreetly.”

The French found nothing discreet about these comments. She was heartily booed as she left a short noontime event at the Palais de Chaillot honoring the French Rights of Man. She was booed again by a large crowd along the barricades of the Place de la Bastille when she left the opera house in her armor-plated limousine after the performance.

Thatcher in Back

Intentionally or not, the Mitterrand government placed the British leader in the back rows of the assembled world leaders at both the Rights of Man ceremony and the opera performance. Her motorcade was also one of the last allowed to leave the opera house area, behind even that of Zaire leader Mobutu Sese Seko, the self-described “supreme guide” of his country, who came to Paris without an invitation.

The presence of dictator Mobutu has caused a minor stir among some of the other Third World nations.

“The rest of us came to celebrate the Revolution,” said a member of the delegation from India. “He came to celebrate The Terror.”

Mitterrand felt that by inviting the Third World leaders to the Bicentennial celebrations, he could foster dialogue between them and the leaders of the group of seven leading industrial democracies, including Bush, who will begin meeting here this evening. He was also sensitive to the charge that it might be considered poor taste to host a meeting for the world’s seven richest nations on the anniversary of France’s popular uprising.

But despite his efforts, he has been forced in recent days to defend not only his celebration but also the French Revolution itself.

“For those of us who serve the Republic and democracy,” he said in an interview with the American ABC television network, “the 14th of July is our fete.”

Reacting to charges that he had turned the Bicentennial into an imperial-style event, with lavish meals and gala events such as the Bastille Opera opening, Mitterrand said: “When you receive friends, you put your house in order. You put flowers in the vases. You organize a dinner that is a little bit better than an ordinary family meal. That does not mean you are receiving your friends in an imperial fashion.”

According to the official estimates of the French government, the costs of the Bicentennial festivities will exceed $70 million. The total cost of the building projects--the Louvre pyramid, the opera and the Arche de la Defense--will exceed $1.3 billion.

The cost of the celebration is at the center of the continuing feud between Mitterrand and his main political foe, Gaullist party leader Jacques Chirac, who also happens to be mayor of Paris. The Mitterrand government charges that Chirac ran up a bill, paid for by the national government, of more than $13 million on one 90-minute party June 14 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower.

Chirac says Mitterrand is exaggerating the numbers to hide his own excesses.

Regarding today’s parade and other events planned here, the mayor of Paris said Thursday, residents “would be wise to leave town.”