What was going on when I was born?

The French Government expressed concern today over Mexico's decision to ''suspend'' contracts held by French companies in retaliation for France's refusal to pay an extra $2 a barrel for Mexican oil. The Mexican decision, announced Saturday, apparently freezes work by French companies on a factory to build subway cars, as well as halting construction of an auto engine plant by Renault, the French state-owned auto maker. Mexico also said it would not consider French bids for nuclear reactor contracts. The French foreign ministry said today it was ''following with close attention'' the Mexican Government's decision to halt the contracts, potentially worth about $1 billion.

''We have been discussing among ourselves whether it is the function of botanical gardens just to identify, inventory and classify plants, or whether there are social problems of such consequence that we must become involved in the practical application of that knowledge.'' - Dr. James M. Hester, president of the New York Botanical Garden.

INTERNATIONAL Moscow might not block a meeting of the Polish Communist Party on July 14 that is expected to result in the approval of a side range of liberal changes in Poland's political and economic systems. This was implied in a joint communique published in Moscow and Warsaw after the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, returned to Moscow after threde days of talks with Polish leaders. The communique spoke of a "businesslike, comradely atmosphere," but left unclear what Moscow intends to do about Poland's push for a more flexible form of Communism. (Page A1, Column 6.) Near-final election returns in Israel gave Prime Minister Menachem Begin Likudbloc a one-seat lead over the Labor Alignment headed by Shimon Peres. Prime Minster Begin was expected to get a call from President Yitzhak Nacon to form a new government. (A1:5)

A 9-year-old girl in a white dress used one hand to balance a wicker basket stuffed with six clucking chickens on her head. With the other she clutched the hand of her 3-year-old sister. Their dirty faces were freckled with gnats. Shirtless men sweated under the weight of crude wooden beds. Women carried heavy stone slabs for grinding corn for tortillas. A teen-age girl walked sprightly in spite of a heavy board on her head, a rolled up straw mat in her left hand, and, in her right hand, a large saucer-shaped piece of metal charred by the open fires on which it had been used for cooking.

The New York Botanical Garden, known to botanists and horticulturists throughout the world as a leading research center for plant sciences, has decided to establish three new institutes devoted to solving urgent social and ecological problems. This represents a major shift in focus for the 90-year-old institution, whose primary research function has been the gathering and classification of plants from all over the world.

''By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworth life.'' - Andrew Carnegie, 1889, industrialist, multimillionaire, philanthropist, advocate of estate taxes. ''Current estate and gift tax law imposes almost impossible burdens on the most productive sector of the economy.'' - Testimony to Congress, 1981, by Robert L. Spence, chairman of the National Committee to Preserve the Family Business. WASHINGTON, July 5 - The problem of heeding both Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Spence is before Congress this year as it considers how much to relax the Federal tax on transfers of wealth by inheritance and giftgiving.

The power was on and the brakes were off when a subway train slammed into the rear of a stationary train in Brooklyn on Friday afternoon, investigators reported yesterday. The motorman was killed in the crash and 135 persons were injured. The president of the Transit Authority said the motorman, Jesse Cole, had not removed his hand from the lever that powers the train, an action that would have immediately braked the train. Just before the accident, the train swung around a curve and plunged from daylight into a dark tunnel. The sudden change of light may have briefly impaired Mr. Cole's vision and prevented him from seeing the train that had stopped ahead of him, according to John D. Simpson, the Transit Authority's president.

For two weeks, their names and faces competed for the attention of a country hungry for heroes. At times, their moves were monitored so closely that when she promised not to obey and he said he would try, tradition seemed shattered. After all the recent fuss over their styles, future partners and declarations of independence, Lady Diana Spencer and John McEnroe have proved their points, she about her marriage vows (the ceremony won't include the bride's traditional promise to obey), he on the courts. The fact that both happened to be on the center court of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at the same time twice last week was another example of Wimbledon's ties to British customs and ceremony. The day before the start of this year's tennis fortnight, the 22-year-old McEnroe sat in his London flat and talked about his return to the scene of last year's five-set classic with Bjorn Borg. A lot of people want to make Wimbledon and the United States Open the only two tournaments that count, he said. There should be six or eight tournaments of equal importance. Wimbledon was not the world.

The Interior Department expects domestic use of the sometimes deadly mineral asbestos to remain steady, and it expects use elsewhere to grow at an average rate of 4.5 percent through the year 2000. These projections have been made partly in the belief that the hazards of asbestos are finally well enough understood to prevent further dangerous exposure to asbestos fibers. Inhalation of asbestos in past decades has caused tens of thousands of cancer deaths so far and is likely to result in 200,000 more cancer deaths over the next 20 years, according to medical experts at Mount Sinai Hospital Environmental Sciences Laboratory. It has also caused thousands of other workers to suffer asbestosis, a chronic and disabling respiratory disease that is occasionally fatal.

Large companies from coast to coast report a surge in appeals for grants from antipoverty groups, universities, cultural agencies and other nonprofit organizations scrambling to replace money they fear they will lose as a result of Reagan Administration budget cuts. The companies say there is no way they can come anywhere near offsetting the Federal grant money that is to be eliminated. ''We've been deluged with thousands of requests, a 100 percent increase in the first quarter of this year,'' said Mary Hall, vice president of corporate contributions at the Weyerhaeuser Company headquarters in Tacoma, Wash., which twice a day receives mail sacks crammed with appeals. Most corporate givers reported an increase of 25 to 35 percent in requests from the nation's 300,000 nonprofit organizations, which range from opera companies and private universities to groups that feed the poor. ''There's a certain element of panic about anticipated losses,'' Richard F. Neblett, contributions coordinator for Exxon, said at its Manhattan headquarters, where the increase in appeals is less dramatic than that at Weyerhaeuser.

Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko returned to the Soviet Union from Poland today after three days of talks with Polish leaders, but a joint communique left unclear what Moscow intends to do about Poland's push for a more flexible form of Communism. The communique, issued here and in Warsaw, spoke of ''a businesslike, comradely atmosphere'' in the discussions between Mr. Gromyko and a group led by Stanislaw Kania, first secretary of the Polish party. The terms used to characterize the talks were somewhat cooler than those commonly employed to describe high-level talks in the Soviet bloc and suggested that the two sides had differed on at least some points. The communique, released by Tass, the Soviet press agency, implied that the Kremlin intended to allow the Polish Communists to go ahead with a special party congress, scheduled to open July 14, that is expected to result in the approval of a wide range of liberal changes in the country's political and economic systems.

Cocoa beans, the foundation for chocolate and other sweets, are at the center of an increasingly bitter controversy between cocoa producing and consuming countries. While the price of cocoa has plummeted to a five-year low, the International Cocoa Organization, an alliance between cocoa producing and consuming nations, has been unable to agree on a strategy that might ease the downward pressure. ''The International Cocoa Organization has simply not done its job,'' said one cocoa expert. ''And as long as you have politics involved - as you do now - nothing constructive can be done.''