October 19, 1983

At 2 A.M. Sunday, the Champs-Elysees was one long black limousine inching its way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. Groups of young men in leather jackets stood on street corners. Young women in tight skirts looked for taxis. Romantic couples walked head to shoulder. It did not matter that it was raining or that the leaves on the sidewalk were being blown into little tornadoes. Paris was awake. It was going to have a good time. And nothing - not the weather, the Government, the rate of exchange, the taxes, and certainly not the triumph of the Japanese at the current spring fashion shows - was going to stop it. At La Piscine, the newest club in town, young men with Jean Marais haircuts (shaved in back and long on top) were standing eight deep waiting to get in. They wore long black coats, T-shirts, suspenders and sailor caps. Some were tattooed. The young women had crew cuts or wore fabric wrapped around their hair. Everyone wore black boots or white sneakers. Inside, it was all white tiles and different levels. The dance floor jumped. The music was British. From a balcony, Patrick Dupont, the young ballet dancer with the Paris Opera, who is the toast of Paris, surveyed the sea of heads.

THE signs and sights and smells of the ''new'' Flushing poke out unexpectedly from among the small haberdashers, hardware and dry-goods stores and gift shops. Bharat, Ku Hwa, Mi-Mi, Shamiana, Sam Bok, Se-Ho Trading Company read the names of the food shops along Main, Union and Prince Streets and on the smaller side streets that cut through them. The word ''Seoul'' has been carefully lettered in front of the name of the Little Angels Department Store on Main Street, bestowing upon it a new Asian identity like that of many Flushing stores. More and more, the shopkeepers are Asian in what was once one of many suburblike, homogeneously white commercial centers in the city's ''borough of homes.'' For them, and for many non- Asians as well, this area in Queens has become an exciting and exotic gastronomic mecca. You can smell the paprika, fennel, sesame oil and mango chutney, and the pungency of the spicy, hot Korean salad called kimchee brings water to the eyes. The fruit and vegetable stands have stacks of lotus and taro roots, bok choy and choy sum, dried black mushrooms and cuttlefish alongside the fresh fruits and vegetables, and in the Sam Bok market on Main Street, Hono Pak will sell you five-feet-long sheets of dried seaweed and bottles of Mackoly, one brand of natural Korean rice wine.

The General Motors Corporation, the nation's largest manufacturer of automobiles, agreed today to pay $42.5 million to settle a 10-year-old complaint charging employment discrimination against blacks, women and Hispanic people. It was described by Federal officials as the largest out-of-court settlement of an employment discrimination case. The agreement sets numerical goals for the hiring, training and promoting of women and members of minority groups. It also includes an unusual provision under which the company plans to give $15 million in endowments and scholarships to colleges and technical schools, primarily to assist G.M. employees and members of their families. Members of the ''affected class,'' the blacks, women and Hispanic employees, are to be given preference in the distribution of the education assistance funds.

Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., who backed President Reagan's use of American Marines in Lebanon, said today that he would oppose the Administration's continuing aid to Nicaraguan rebels in a crucial vote scheduled for the House of Representatives on Thursday. ''I believe that the United States should not be engaged militarily in trying to overthrow other governments,'' Mr. O'Neill said. ''I believe there is a sharp difference between what the Administration is doing in Lebanon and what it is trying to do in Nicaragua. In Lebanon, it is supporting a government. In Nicaragua, it is trying to overthrow one.''

Mayor Koch and the Mayor of Managua, Nicaragua, held a spirited but friendly 15-minute debate today, with each accusing the other's Government of causing the turmoil in Central America. The exchange with the Nicaraguan Mayor, Samuel Santos Lopez, took place in a hotel that was the site of a conference of mayors from the Western Hemisphere sponsored by the city of San Juan. Mr. Koch, who had earlier delivered a luncheon address on problems facing New York City, compared the Nicaraguan Government with that of the Soviet Union. He said both encouraged political violence in neighboring countries, then used the strife as a pretext for stifling internal debate through press censorship.