Bubbly Vanessa would have preferred forced work rather than forced rest. But an accident last January gave her a pretty little bone fracture. All the same. Ms. Paradis will go through the media promotion for her new film, Half a Chance. 28 years after Borsalino, director Patrice Leconte has succeeded in reuniting Delon and Belmondo. Frail Vanessa should have been frightened to death, but at a mere 25 years old she faced them fearlessly. "She's as bright a star as there is," affirms Bebel. Delon says: "She's the star of today and the year 2000." Leconte has already enlisted her for his next film, The Girl on the Bridge.

At 14 years old, Vanessa Paradis, a tiny, barely blooming bud, conquered France by singing "Joe le Taxi." Since then, film after film, album after album, she climbed all the rungs of the ladder. She worked, polishing her singing talent and acting gift. In Half a Chance, Vanessa shows she knows how to wield her charm as a weapon. She plays a young woman who learns of the death of her mother, who had two great loves in her life. Which one of those two loves is her father? But it's unbelievable that Delon and Belmondo would be satisfied to play a pair of "fathers," even potential fathers. So throw in the Russian Mafia. Both an action film and an emotional film, Leconte plays his cards spectacularly. For Vanessa, this film shoot was the first time in her career that she found herself in the midst of flaming cars and explosions of any kind. Surely this time, the sexy little sparrow so dear to Chanel flies with the eagles. Fortunately, our bird of paradise did not forget her nightingale side: she already works on a new album.

Kleber, the general Kleber: funnier than its avenue. This old bar Raphael. It's here, I remember, that I interviewed Emmanuelle Beart when she was still with Daniel Auteuil. Around 1990? 1991? For Femme, epoque Annick Geille. Hello, Annick! I also posed in the bathrooms of Raphael, for the editorial "A Man Dressed in Nude," for Glamour, in 1998, epoque Anne Chabrol. Hello, Anne! Yeah, you see, always there, faithful to the changing of the guard...

This evening, it's Vanessa Paradis. She arrives. Ah, her hair is curly, I adore that. She has crutches, which went unmentioned in the press kit. The famous ski accident in the mountains of Quebec. She asks whether her cigarette smoke disturbs me. Does she take me for an American flight attendant? A Canadian customs officer? A Dutch restorer? She's a Piaf-blonde, who does not want to recount her love stories. Not the kind to be a poster-child for torch songs. Her drink: Cocarondelle.

Certain mal-intentioned people claim she was better when she was 14, but all girls are better at 14. That's why our forefathers, who were more intelligent than us, married them at that age. In Patrice Leconte's Half a Chance, she's still a girl. "It's easier for me to play girls than mothers, except of course a young mother."

Shooting with Delon and Belmondo? "They bowl me over. I stayed a little in the background, feeling that they had both a need and desire to get to know each other again. What can I say about them without getting them annoyed? Alain is intelligent, solitary, tender. Jean-Paul, he is Mr. Ambiance. Very merry, very merry. He had his two Yorkshires with him. Me, I also had my dog. Alain too. It was a shoot for the dogs. I'd never done that stuff before: holding a gun, running between cars that explode. It's interesting."

Is it Delon or Belmondo who flirted with her the most? "No, listen, they were totally there for the other, very moved by the film. They are, at the same time, opposite and complementary." In the end, in the story, is it Delon or Belmondo who is her father? "Ah, exactly. Um, well, a little of both." She means what? Cloning? "In fact, together, they make the perfect father. Moreover, there was Patrice, who is also very tender, very protective. I have me three teddy bears. What more can a woman dream of?"

Did she keep the essay that Etienne Roda-Gil wrote for her on his knees in the recording studio in 1990 and for which she had 2 out of 20? "I don't know. Maybe my sister has inherited it..." Did she watch the last French Grammys? She tilts her head at me, wanting me to elaborate. The show is too commercial, it's always bad because the people on it have too much success. "Right on the nose. It's a really bad program, in spite of really talented people: Cabrel, Souchon..."

Now, I go for the heart, that's why I brought my stake, uh, my pen: was she happy for Florent Pagny? "Very much so. Very, very much so. More than happy. It was a pleasure to see someone so happy. His family life, all that, Patagonie, horses, his new wife who is so beautiful, it's marvelous."

What does she think of cinema in general? "I go to the movie theater a lot. I'm concerned about the evolution of the profession. There are a lot of new talent, like Kounen, the director of Dobermann. The young scriptwriters have started sending me scripts and I read them attentively." Oh, she reads now? A grin. "Only scripts. For books, I'm waiting till I'm old. I'm delighted by looking forward to having all these marvelous literary works to discover in front of the fire, starting around 2040, 2050..."

I've heard it said that she lives with a half-Slovenian. Has she ever been to Slovenia? She becomes paler, if that's even possible. "I don't want to start on that subject." The subject of Slovenia? It's a strongly beautiful country, however. Small, but vain. "I systematically attack the papers that evoke my private life and I win every time. Every human being is entitled to their secret garden." Doesn't she worry, by hiding her splendid boyfriend, she passes for a laissée-pour-compte? "That would indicate to people that maybe someone young, beautiful, rich and famous, salivates never-the-less!" [what??]

A question to ease the tension: what's the name of the communist Minister of Transports? "I don't know. I don't read the papers, only magazines and the fashion weeklies." Does she pay too many taxes? "When one pays more than half of ones earnings, one finds that too many taxes are paid, but at the same time I don't have a money problem, not so much that I want to become Swiss or Monegasque."

Among all of life's pleasures, which does she prefer? "Love." Everybody's answer. "It's the most beautiful one, don't you think?" If she wants my opinion, I'd say it depends day-to-day. Does she think her life is headed towards more happiness or more misfortune? "Towards more misfortune? I'm not so negative. I don't yet know the happiness of having had a child, and in my opinion, it's the greatest happiness a woman can know." If a day was successful, what would she do during the day? "Anything, provided that I went to sleep with a smile."

Drugs, done with? Second evil look of the evening, and to get the answer I will act like Tintin. I rephrase my question: What does she think of the pro-marijuana petition signed recently by a hundred intellectuals of which the goal was to legalize soft drugs? This petition, in my opinion, had a use: thanks to it, I understood why so many intellectuals say and write nonsensical and even disgraceful works. It's because they're burnt to a crisp.

"I think that, no matter what happens, it's a subject that we must speak about with precaution. Drug use occurs earlier and earlier in the lives of children. Things should be well-explained, differentiated well. The term -- legalization of soft drugs -- is unbearable. Drugs, they are never soft. In any case, it's urgent to speak about it, so that we all become responsible."

Does thinking of New York make her melancholic? "What melancholy? I'm never a melancholic person. In fact, I'm far removed from the girls I've played in Noce Blanche or Elisa. These girls were weakened by their family situations, with me it's the opposite. I have a mother, a father, a marvelous uncle, and it's thanks to them that I'm so strong, so positive. New York, it was a dream, it was life. Paris, it's that way too. It's the rest of my life."

She rises, refusing my assistance in regard to her crutches. Her publicist, the beginning of a novel herself, finishes her duty. I complain that Vanessa did not give me any scoop. This paper will give me hell. She smiles -- the tired, anxious smile of girls who walk with crutches -- and says: "My foot itches." Satisfied, I propose that I fax this article to her tomorrow morning, provided that she then faxes it to Paris Match. "My fax can only receive, not send." A Slovenian fax? Another smile.

I go home. In a Joe le Taxi, of course.