THE WHITE HOUSE

                      Office of the Press Secretary
                              (Lyon, France)
______________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                    June 27, 1996     


                         REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                    TO THE PEOPLE OF PEROUGES, FRANCE

                              Liberty Place
                             Perouges, France

12:30 P.M. CET



                THE PRESIDENT:  Mayor De la Chapelle; Mayor Bussy;
Prefect Ritter; to Mr. Mavereaux (ph.), the president of the local
veterans association; to Henri Girousse; to all the World War II
veterans who are here; to members of Parliament; especially to the
children and the teachers of Perouges and Meximieux; to my fellow
Americans -- let me begin by saying that Hillary and I and our party
are very, very pleased to be here in Perouges today, to be so warmly
welcomed by you, and especially to be here with all the school
children.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)
                
                I would like to say a special word of thanks to the
very large number of members of Parliament who are here and to the
military band for providing such excellent music today.  (Applause.)
                
                Mayor de la Chapelle, I know that your ancestor,
Pierre, fought in our Revolutionary War and even advised our first
president, George Washington.  So, Mr. Mayor, I'm glad to be here
with you today and I would be happy to have any advice you might have
for me today.  (Laughter and applause.)  Thank you.
                
                Americans have been at home here since our soldiers
trained together during World War I and our people fought together in
the final days of World War II.  I am glad to be here to renew our
friendship with the people of Perouges, as we stand on the brink of a
new century and an age of great possibility for the children who are
here.
                
                As we drove from Lyons, Perouges rose in the distance,
its great ramparts crowned by your beautiful church tower and tile
roofs.  Then we discovered the cobblestone streets, the narrow lanes,
the hand-painted signs, the sundials, the drinking wells.   The sense
of timelessness is so strong in this beautiful place it is easy to
forget the story of Perouges is also the story of change.  Weavers,
craftsmen and farmers once made this town a great Medieval trading
center.  A century ago, the railroads passed you by, and people began
to leave.  But then artists, historians and ordinary citizens worked
with government to establish a community as a historic monument.  And
ever since, the history you have preserved here has brought people
like me from all around the world and allowed this wonderful
community to thrive.
                
                We should all learn from this lesson.  Today the world
we live in is changing faster than ever.  While more and more people
prosper in this new global economy, others struggle without the
proper education and training.  While new technologies and rapid
movements of information and money and people across national borders
bring all of us closer together, they also make all of us more open
to common dangers -- crime, drug trafficking and terrorism, as we saw
in Saudi Arabia, where 19 Americans were killed and many more were
wounded.  And I thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that moment of silence in
their memory.
             
             To meet these challenges, we must show strength and 
steadiness and judgment and flexibility.  We must meet our 
challenges and protect our values just as you have here.  That is 
what this G-7 meeting is all about because I know that if we all 
work together, we can keep the world economy growing so that more 
and more of our people have the opportunity to make the most of 
their own lives.  And if we all work together, we can face these 
terrible new threats to our security successfully.
             
             Terrorism is on our minds today because of the 
cowardly bombing in Saudi Arabia.  So let me repeat what I said 
yesterday to the American people -- we will not rest in our 
efforts to discover who is responsible, to track them down and to 
bring them to justice.   My friends, we must rally the forces of 
tolerance and freedom everywhere to work against terrorism, just 
as we are working together for peace in Bosnia today with the 
strong leadership of France and President Chirac.

             Last year the United States launched an 
international initiative to fight terrorism, organized crime, 
drug trafficking and nuclear smuggling.  Here in Lyon, I expect 
the G-7 nations to adopt 40 very specific recommendations to 
combat crime and terror, to increase our efforts to prevent 
terrorists from committing their crimes and our ability to track, 
catch, and punish them when they do.  The future of the children 
here depend upon our success in this effort.  (Applause.)

             Fifty-two years ago the French Resistance worked 
here in common cause with American GIs to win your freedom back.  
Now we must join together to face down the new threats to our 
freedom.  Your unshakable devotion to freedom is literally rooted 
here in the heart of your town in this mighty linden tree, which 
was planted just over 200 years ago during the French Revolution.  
You call it the Tree of Liberty.

             Today's threats to the liberty your tree symbolizes 
are very different from those of 200 years ago, different from 
the threats of World War II or the Cold War, but they are real, 
and we must face them.  We must face them so that the children 
here today will enter the 21st century free and secure, with the 
greatest opportunity to live out their dreams of any generation 
in human history.

             That is my dream.  It is one I hope we all share.  
Thank you very much.  God bless America, and vive la France.

            END                        12:46 P.M. CET