The General who knew the soldier’s reputation as an astrologer shook his hand and an

The General, who knew the soldier’s reputation as an astrologer, shook his hand and an aide invited him to meet De Gaulle at the local town hall. Vasset presented him with his astrological chart and De Gaulle pocketed it, saying simply: “Merci Vasset.”This brief encounter laid the foundations for a professional relationship that lasted 25 years until De Gaulle’s resignation in 1969 after the loss of his disastrous referendum on regional government and senate reform – a poll Major Vasset strongly advised against.The major, now 85, is too discreet to reveal details of his consultations with the former president in an interview with the weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.But he proudly recalls the day when – in the presence of Winston Churchill, who himself consulted the fortune-teller Barbara Harris, and General de Lattre de Tassigny, also a firm believer in the powers of astrology – De Gaulle scribbled on the back of an astrological chart: “Vasset, you are a good soldier but also a good astrologer.”Mr Vasset recalls that De Gaulle was hard-headed and could often be stubborn “De Gaulle was an authoritarian man, quite cold and very independent. Sometimes he took certain things which I had pointed out to him seriously. But after the crisis of May 68 when I went to the æpermil;lysees to advise him against holding a referendum which I saw he was going to lose, he did not want to believe me. He had already made up his mind and nothing could change it,” he said.Mr Vasset’s revelations add credence to the view of many modern historians that De Gaulle decided to hold the referendum – knowing he would be defeated – as an act of political suicide that would allow him to retire from political life.The news that political leaders have resorted to such measures often fuels concern about their competence to govern, but Mitterrand and De Gaulle were following an age-old French tradition in looking to the stars for answers to their most pressing problems.From Napoleon’s Josephine, whose astrologer Mlle Le Normand predicted she would be Empress, to Catherine de Medici who consulted the most famous astrologer of all – Nostradamus – the notoriously superstitious French have looked to the heavens for generations. Ten million French people still consult an astrologer each year.. What started as an inquiry involving a few school principals and education officials with a penchant for pearls, gold bracelets and holidays is widening into a scandal that risks discrediting Italy’s antiquated education system.

What started as an inquiry involving a few school principals and education officials with a penchant for pearls, gold bracelets and holidays is widening into a scandal that risks discrediting Italy’s antiquated education system.
Last week nine people in the province of Latina near Rome were put under house arrest for allegedly demanding regalini, (little gifts) for a helping hand in professional qualifying exams or costly “preparation courses” ensuring almost certain success.Now similar inquiries have opened into irregularities in Rome, Salerno, Cassino, Crotone, La Spezia and Cuneo, a domino effect of denunciations by candidates who were denied jobs or promotion because they failed exams.The Education Minister Tullio De Mauro, a leading linguist, is trying to defend the integrity of the school system against what he calls a few rotten apples. He has vowed to overhaul teacher recruitment, which is usually done by concorsi, huge public exams.The disgrace is a far cry from the scandal of the billions of lire that changed hands among businessmen, public officials and politicians in the Tangentopoli (Bribesville) of the early Eighties, but the press is already calling it “Esamopoli” (Examville).What has struck many Italians is the pettiness, how officials can sell their professional and ethical values, for so little. Under investigation is Annamaria P, a well-groomed 65-year-old widow, and president of the examining structure. She oversaw 27 panels, some of which had members who could be relied on to “do the right thing”.Phone taps reveal that one day she had to go to three separate jewellers to sort out gifts and exchange things not to her liking. To someone seeking a helping hand to secure a kindergarten job, she said: “The president [of that panel]) wants 15 to 20 million lire [£3,000 to £3,300]. You need important friends to get through that one.”Mostly it was little tricks – an advance look at the paper, number-juggling to ensure the candidate was examined by the right commission, or agreeing codes and secret signals so the examiners could recognise the “paying” candidate’s paper.In one case it was making the dot on the letter i a circle, in some an agreed word in the first or last phrase, in others using a certain kind of pen.A headmaster and his wife are also accused of organising “preparation courses”.

Success to those who paid was guaranteed, and the couple earned £80,000 in three years.Such officials operate in fertile terrain. Over the past year, for the first time in a decade, there have been the first megaconcorsi – national public written exams and orals – for teaching posts. Many were secure jobs for the precari, temporary teachers who lurch for years from temporary contract to contract and school to school. Education reforms set out new criteria for teachers and many applicants feared they would never get a secure job if they did not make it this time.There is a general assumption here that a job for life is the right of every Italian who has to support his or her family and, with this noble end, any means were justifiable. An editorial in La Stampa newspaper says stopping corruption is hard when people on modest, if not insultingly low, salaries are given power The only solution, it suggests, is to pay them more.. Two British police officers working in Kosovo are among four Westerners the Yugoslav security forces claimed yesterday to have arrested on suspicion of aiding Montenegro to mount “terrorist acts” against Serbia. Two British police officers working in Kosovo are among four Westerners the Yugoslav security forces claimed yesterday to have arrested on suspicion of aiding Montenegro to mount “terrorist acts” against Serbia.
The four – two British and two Canadian – were said by Belgrade to be armed, and planning to train Montenegrin police units for “terrorist acts”.They were detained on Monday night or early Tuesday near the town of Andrijevica in north-eastern Montenegro, just across the border from Kosovo where they were based, according to a Yugoslav army statement.The Foreign Office summoned Yugoslavia’s representatives in London to demand information on the arrests, about which the British Government was not officially notified.