‘Stagiaires’ have less fun

Date: 30/01/1997

Scandinavia's reputation for being more liberal-thinking than the rest of Europe took a bit of a bashing last week.

The Nordic stagiaires decided to promote a party with posters depicting a scantily-clad Danish model and the hackneyed old saying “Blondes have more fun”.

That was until sharp-eyed Swedish Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin spotted it. Gradin, who is not at all blonde, was furious. She rattled off a letter of objection to her Finnish counterpart Erkki Liikanen, who used to be blonde.

Women, said Gradin, were being diminished, degraded and disrespected. Liikanen responded with an all-points alert. Instructions were issued to tear down the posters wherever they appeared in the institutions. The stagiaires also had to withdraw entrance tickets which displayed the unidentified model.

They were not pleased. “Quite frankly, it's embarrassing that a Commissioner should act like this,” grumbled a member of the organising committee.