GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

French police have banned the sale of a hit record called Go for It Saddam, a paean to the Iraqi dictator. Recorded in Arabic by Algerian singer Mohamed Mazouni, the song is popular with France's North African youth. The single, which was available in both audio- and videocassette versions, attacks the West for the war and ends on an apocalyptic note: "Where are you, Muslims?/ You permitted Bush/ to tread in the Holy Shrines . . . other Arabs are hypnotized by the dollar . . . /Oil prices rise, the atomic bomb/ is being made to terrorize Israel."

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart