UNEARTHING OF ACTOR'S REMAINS MORTIFIES FRENCH; MONTAND'S DNA NEEDED TO SETTLE PATERNITY SUIT.

Byline: Meg Bortin Hollywood Reporter

Yves Montand lies down a cobbled lane from Marcel Proust and Isadora Duncan at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris.

The tomb he shares with Simone Signoret, his wife for 34 years, is piled with flowers brought by fans who came this weekend to pay their respects to one of French cinema's best-loved actors - before his bones are disinterred to settle a paternity suit.

Many of the cemetery visitors said they were scandalized by the decision of a Paris appeals court to perform DNA tests on Montand's remains in order to determine whether he is the father of 22-year-old Aurore Drossart, as she claims.

``I think it's disgusting,'' said France Cornu, a Frenchwoman who lives in Sunnyvale, Calif., and who arrived in Paris on Friday, the day after the court issued its ruling. ``This affair is totally shocking. Let the dead be dead.''

The court's decision to exhume Montand, who died six years ago, on Nov. 9, 1991, has unleashed a wave of indignation in France.

Dr. Bernard Kouchner, the French secretary of state for health, declared on television that he was affronted by the ruling and said it appeared to be mainly a question of ``inheritance and big money.''

Dr. Axel Kahn, a genetician who serves on an official ethics committee, deemed the ruling ``abnormal'' and said in any event it would not be valid since Montand had refused to undergo paternity tests while alive.

And Carole Amiel, Montand's companion after Signoret died in 1985 and the mother of the only child he ever recognized as his, said she was profoundly shocked by the decision. ``I can't understand why they have decided to do something so unspeakable,'' she declared.

It was Amiel herself, however, who initiated the court appeal, together with Catherine Allegret, Signoret's daughter, who was adopted by Montand in 1988 and is one of his legal heirs.

The paternity case dates back to 1989, when Drossart and her mother, Anne Drossart, filed suit claiming that Montand was Aurore's father. Anne Drossart, a former actress, said that she and Montand had begun an affair in 1974, when she was 19. Aurore was born on Oct. 6, 1975.

The Drossarts initiated their lawsuit shortly after Amiel gave birth to a son, Valentin, whom Montand, then 67, claimed as his first child.

Denying that he was Drossart's father, the actor ignored a 1990 court order that he undergo a blood test. He died of a massive heart attack the following year - but that did not end the case.

A Paris court ruled in 1994 that Montand was indeed Aurore Drossart's father, basing its decision on the physical resemblance between the two and on testimony about his relationship with Anne Drossart. It was then that Amiel and Allegret lodged their appeal.

The court's decision to exhume the body of the immensely popular actor-singer for genetic testing is a first in France, according to the newspaper Liberation. Under the ruling, the tests are to be carried out before June 30, 1998.

Acknowledging that the decision would be controversial, the Drossarts' lawyer, Gilbert Collard, said, ``It's not our fault if proof can come from beyond the grave.''

If the tests prove that Aurore Drossart is Montand's daughter, she stands to inherit a sizable chunk of his fortune, which includes properties in Paris, Normandy and Provence and royalties from his many recordings.

Under French law, however, she would receive only half as much as each of Montand's recognized heirs: Valentin and Allegret. The value of the Montand estate has not been made public.

Montand, born Ivo Livi in Tuscany in 1921, is remembered by the French as a singer as much as an actor. He started his career in Marseille, made his way to Paris and became a protege of the great French singer Edith Piaf, making his film debut with her in 1946.

Montand went on to star in a wide range of films, from romantic comedies such as George Cukor's ``Let's Make Love'' with Marilyn Monroe (1960) to political action films such as ``Z'' (1968) and ``State of Siege'' (1973) by Costa-Gavras.

In an apparent coincidence, the first documentary on Montand since his death is due to be aired today on French television, in tandem with the release of a CD containing a song about Valentin that Montand recorded just before he died. A book by Amiel about Montand will be published this month.

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Photo

Photo: Yves Montand

Died in 1991