Coluche

Christmas time is not a bad moment to mark the 20 years since the foundation of France's best-loved charity. Les Restos du Coeur were set up at the end of 1985 by the much-loved comedian Coluche in response to what he saw as the crying scandal of poverty and homelessness in French cities. Just a few months later Coluche was killed in a motorbike accident outside Cannes, but such was the popular devotion to him that his charity -- originally intended as a one-off campaign -- became a national institution. This winter some 650,000 people will receive 70 million meals in 2,000 distribution points. The welfare consisted originally of hot meals for the "SDF" -- sans domicile fixe i.e. homeless -- but today most beneficiaries are people with homes, and even jobs, but who cannot afford to pay for food. This is especially a problem in Paris where rents have skyrocketed in recent years. Some of the food -- notably milk and cheese -- comes in the form of a donation from the EU, because it was Coluche's great posthumous success to win approval from Brussels to release part of its massive suprluses. Coluche also gave his name to a 1988 French law that provides tax relief on small charitable donations. The other major source of income for the charity is an ad-hoc group of celebrities called Les Enfoires who perform once a year to raise money. Members have included such luminaries as Johnny Hallyday, Eddie Mitchell and Jean-Jacques Goldman. The "Restos du Coeur" are a quintessentially French phenomenon, in the sense that they stem from a French public response to a French need as articulated by one of the most popular Frenchmen of all times. In a poll this year Coluche came fifth in a list of "greatest ever". He was an irreverend but huge-hearted clown, and the public still adores him.