French press review
Today’s French newspapers are dominated by the G8 summit in Deauville, northern France. But one paper accuses the government of distorting immigration statistics.
The Catholic daily La Croix reports that President Nicolas Sarkozy is hosting an enlarged G8 session this Friday with Egypt and Tunisia as well as the UN, Arab League and International Monetary Fund. Le Figaro explains that the leaders are expected to promise new aid for the new governments in Tunis and Cairo to encourage democratic reform following the revolts that overthrew strongmen Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak.
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L’Humanité denounces what it calls a take-over bid of the Arab spring, after decades of complicity with dictators. The Communist Party daily says that Tunisia and Egypt need an estimated 25 billion euros over the next five years to rebuild their economies – a commitment the G8 countries must make to recoup their standing the Arab countries..
Sarkozy is also using the summit to lobby for Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister seeking to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as IMF chief. The succession at the top of the global emergency lender, weighed heavily on the sidelines of the summit on Thursday. Le Monde reports that European leaders have vaunted their choice for the leadership of Madame Lagarde adding that she gained personal approval from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday.
The economic daily Les Echos commends the blistering offensive of the Europeans and notes that Lagarde’s prospects have been boosted by divisions within the Brics camp, as the so-called emerging economies failed to find a consensus candidate.
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Some of today’s papers underline how Sarkozy is scoring political points from his hosting of the G8. Right-wing Le Figaro published a photograph of Dominique Strauss-Kahn under police guard, by his 50,000-dollar luxury prison home in south-western Manhattan – a sarcastic way of explaining DSK’s current prisoner status, while Sarkozy takes charge of the world’s problems in Deauville.
Le Figaro says "meteorologists" at the Elysée are upbeat and predict more good news from the “patient efforts” of the government. The watchword, the paper states, is say nothing that could distract public opinion from the pitiful spectacle offered by the Socialists.
Le Figaro stresses that Sarkozy’s ratings have dramatically improved since Strauss-Kahn’s political suicide. It refers to a new poll which found out that while 57 per cent of voters favour a Socialist victory come 2012, the president’s rating climbed to 38 per cent, after improving by a percentage point over the last 10 days.
La Croix disagrees that Sarkozy is off the hook. The Catholic daily highlights boiling anger over public service job cuts which would see the closure of several classrooms across the country. The newspaper says city officials across the political board see the scheme as a nightmare. Education minister Luc Chatel told La Croix that while there will be no moratorium on the policy, he will be keeping a strict eye on the functioning of primary schools.
L’Humanité also takes the government to task over its immigration policies.
The Communist Party daily picks out what it brands as the” Four lies of Claude Guéant”, the interior minister. L’Humanité insists that the government is manipulating immigration and migrant workers statistics for political gain. The paper accuses the government of spreading hatred in the country by suggesting that migrants constitute a burden on state finances and that they are to blame for the rising numbers of school dropouts.
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