Paris Mayor Wins Showdown Over Visas for Movie Makers

Mayor Jacques Chirac scored a victory today in a tit-for-tat dispute with the United States over visas for film makers.

Chirac, a former French prime minister, banned U.S. movie makers from shooting in the French capital after Washington refused to grant a work visa to French film maker Elie Chouraqui.

Within hours, Chouraqui had been promised a visa to film in Chicago.

The ban had threatened the schedules of several movies being shot in Paris, including one starring Paul Newman and another featuring Burt Lancaster.

“We have gotten indications from the U.S. . . . that the problem is close to being solved” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said. He denied Chirac’s ban had any effect.

French radio greeted the news with delight, commenting that the threat to disrupt Newman’s schedule had drawn more than a week of official protests.

A French Culture Ministry spokesman said the U.S. immigration service had refused to issue a visa to Chouraqui because he was “unknown in the United States, didn’t figure on the lists and had received bad reviews from the American press.”