In Southern France, Exiled Duvalier Is Just Part of the Posh Landscape : Diplomacy: The ex-Haitian despot was supposed to stay only a week. Now, ‘he bothers no one; no one bothers him.’

The eight-day visa given deposed Haitian dictator Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier expired nearly four years ago, but here in the South of France, he’s just part of the luxurious landscape.

“He goes where he wants, does what he wants, like any citizen of France,” said Christian Tac, the local police commander. “He bothers no one; no one bothers him. And we don’t watch him.”

Duvalier ended up here Feb. 7, 1986, after he was bundled into an American plane to be taken anywhere but the United States. After some arm-twisting, the French government said he could stay--for one week.

The government’s unofficial position is that authorities hope no one notices that he is still here. The case falls into a zone known loosely in France as “artistic vagueness.”

Several government spokesmen, speaking anonymously in line with government policy, addressed the question.

President Francois Mitterrand’s office in Paris explained: “We wanted to encourage civil peace in Haiti. We might admit someone we do not want to help a democratic process. As to why he is still here four years later, you’d best ask the Quai d’Orsay.”

At the Quai, the Foreign Ministry, a spokesman checked and reported: “He is still ‘assigned to residence,’ more or less. To my knowledge, he does not have political refugee status.”

When advised that police said restrictions on Duvalier’s movements were gradually dropped in mid-1988, he replied, “Ah.” He suggested checking with the ministries of justice and interior.

Neither ministry offered more precision.

Duvalier is disputing in French courts Haiti’s case to recover $120 million he is alleged to have taken with him into exile, but Haitian authorities have relaxed their efforts.

“Duvalier?” repeated Nicole Brunet, public relations officer of Mougins, a Riviera village that rates only discretion above its three-star restaurants. “I don’t even know where he lives.”

He lives behind a gate of black iron spears in Villa Mohamedia, rented from the Saudi magnate Adnan Kashoggi. When a reporter paused out front, two burly guards with assault rifles sprinted forward.

The reporter handed a card through the gate, just beyond reach of three snarling, snapping guard dogs. Moments later, he was told what most visitors hear: “They are receiving no one.”

The 39-year-old former president-for-life and his wife, Michelle, live with their two children. Nicolas, 8, goes to a private school. Anya, 4, plays at home.

Tac, the police commander, said he rarely consults his fat blue file on the family, and he sees them only occasionally. They are comfortably settled and anxious to avoid the limelight, he said.

Duvalier turned in his beloved red Ferrari for a BMW to lower his profile. His wife has dropped the ambition she once confided to Vanity Fair magazine--to be a Los Angeles fashion model.

“Their very name is discretion,” Tac said. “If only everyone could be so peaceable.”

The Duvaliers have no apparent financial problems.

“They never come up here, but sometimes their bodyguards will clear out boutiques in Cannes so Madame Duvalier can shop in tranquility,” said Jean-Louis Truchi, a Mougins restaurateur.

Their favorite bistro is Roger Verge’s Moulin de Mougins, where no one blinks when dinner for two climbs into the hundreds of dollars. Monte Carlo’s casinos are just down the road.

They travel often to Paris, where Michelle’s family lives, and they have three apartments and a nearby 18th-Century chateau.

Yann Colin, a lawyer representing Haiti, filed liens on the real estate.

“We have not found all his liquid assets,” Colin said. “He was not dumb enough to bring it all here.”

The Duvaliers’ arrival caused some embarrassment after the euphoric revolution that ended the 30-year Duvalier dynasty. France values its tradition as a land of asylum but also seeks to keep at arm’s length rulers deposed by popular uprising.

Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, a physician turned despot, ruled Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971, keeping order with a hated goon squad, the Tontons Macoutes. Son Jean-Claude, designated to take over his job, relaxed some repression. But he relied on the same secret police to enforce his absolute power.

Villa Mohamedia is the Duvalier’s third home in France. After a stay at a posh hotel in Talloires, in the foothills of the French Alps, they were banished to the Riviera. After staying in Grasse, the world’s perfume capital, they moved up the road to Mougins.

At first, they were ordered to remain in the immediate vicinity of the Cote d’Azur and Monte Carlo. Then they were quietly allowed total freedom.

The villa’s lush grounds are within earshot of the broad freeway along the Mediterranean shore, linking Nice to parts north. It lies between a lettuce patch and some nondescript homes.

“I never see the guy, and I don’t know what he’s up to,” remarked a neighbor who declined to be identified. “He’s no pal of mine.”

Mougins is among the loveliest villages of France, a pleasant tangle of old stone buildings and semitropical vegetation tumbling down a steep hill within sight of the Mediterranean.

It is known abroad as that place with all the good restaurants. In France, many people regard it as having the highest per capita net worth in a wealthy country.

Brunet, the public relations officer, shrugs off the net-worth question, combining discretion with a protestation that such details are not on record.

“But it is true that there is very little construction here, which tends to drive up the costs of things,” she said. “After all, the mayor does not want just anyone.”