French press review
A public holiday cuts down the amount of newsprint coming off the presses today. Those papers that are on the street record a rise in complaints over sexual assault, new orgy allegations, the art of tax-dodging and tough times for farmers.
There's no Catholics, no Communists and no businesspeople this morning . . . La Croix, L'Humanité and Les Echos are all off the menu because this is a national holiday, marking Ascension Thursday.
The four papers to hand give us plenty of variety to be going on with . . .
Popular tabloid, Le Parisien, says that the recent sexual scandals involving top French political figures . . . former IMF boss, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Junior Minister, Georges Tron, for those who've spent the last two weeks on Mars . . . have had at least one positive effect.Victims of sexual harrassment are speaking up, and aid associations are noting a steady increase in calls, complaints currently running at 30 per cent more than normal.
Obviously, it's not good that there's all that harrassment going on, but at least more victims now feel that their complaints will be taken seriously, and that has to be a step in the right direction.
The paper wonders if we're seeing a fundamental change in the relationship between the sexes, especially in the workplace.
Libération devotes its front page to another political scandal.
This one was sparked earlier this week, when Luc Ferry, former French Education Minister, who now works full-time as a philosopher, referred on television to another former minister who had been, said Ferry, involved in an orgy in Marrakech, with several young boys.
But Ferry the philosopher gave no further details, implying that everyone knew who and what he was talking about.
Just another French sexo-political scandal which had been swept under the carpet. Not so fast, say the police.
You can't do that there 'ere! If Ferry suspects that a crime has been committed, let him come to the police and present his suspicions so that they can be investigated.
Now a judge has been told to look into the affair with a view to hearing Ferry's evidence and then taking whatever action is necessary.
Libé finds the whole thing questionable, calling the fomer Education Minister "Dirty Ferry" on its front page, and saying that it's too easy for public people to denounce others when they don't have to provide a shred of proof.
Then there's right-wing Le Figaro, the paper of the rich and famous. Their main story looks at the debate on changing the way very rich people are taxed here in France.
The simple fact is, most of them aren't. The stinky rich manage to avoid taxation in all sorts of ways, but one of the neatest involves investing huge sums in works of art.
Up to now, the possession of billions-of-euros-worth of art was tax free, but the parliamentary finance committee now suggests that something needs to be done to close a loophole which costs the state an unknown bundle of cash each year and is, according to a Socialist MP, nothing less than a gift to the very rich.
Le Monde devotes a front-page editorial to the question of taxing the very rich, saying that no government, either right or left, has ever managed to strike a balance between social justice and simple vindictivness.
When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was finance minister, he pointed out that Socialist proposals to tax the very well-off allowed François Pinault, then the richest man in France, to get away with paying a single centime.
The drought is a global phenomenon, affecting Germany, Russia and huge swathes of China.
The four papers to hand give us plenty of variety to be going on with . . .
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Obviously, it's not good that there's all that harrassment going on, but at least more victims now feel that their complaints will be taken seriously, and that has to be a step in the right direction.
The paper wonders if we're seeing a fundamental change in the relationship between the sexes, especially in the workplace.
Libération devotes its front page to another political scandal.
This one was sparked earlier this week, when Luc Ferry, former French Education Minister, who now works full-time as a philosopher, referred on television to another former minister who had been, said Ferry, involved in an orgy in Marrakech, with several young boys.
But Ferry the philosopher gave no further details, implying that everyone knew who and what he was talking about.
Just another French sexo-political scandal which had been swept under the carpet. Not so fast, say the police.
You can't do that there 'ere! If Ferry suspects that a crime has been committed, let him come to the police and present his suspicions so that they can be investigated.
Now a judge has been told to look into the affair with a view to hearing Ferry's evidence and then taking whatever action is necessary.
Libé finds the whole thing questionable, calling the fomer Education Minister "Dirty Ferry" on its front page, and saying that it's too easy for public people to denounce others when they don't have to provide a shred of proof.
Then there's right-wing Le Figaro, the paper of the rich and famous. Their main story looks at the debate on changing the way very rich people are taxed here in France.
The simple fact is, most of them aren't. The stinky rich manage to avoid taxation in all sorts of ways, but one of the neatest involves investing huge sums in works of art.
Up to now, the possession of billions-of-euros-worth of art was tax free, but the parliamentary finance committee now suggests that something needs to be done to close a loophole which costs the state an unknown bundle of cash each year and is, according to a Socialist MP, nothing less than a gift to the very rich.
Le Monde devotes a front-page editorial to the question of taxing the very rich, saying that no government, either right or left, has ever managed to strike a balance between social justice and simple vindictivness.
When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was finance minister, he pointed out that Socialist proposals to tax the very well-off allowed François Pinault, then the richest man in France, to get away with paying a single centime.
Just to put the whole thing in perspective, last year 560,000 French people paid the wealth tax, contributing a total of 3,600 million euros to state coffers, at an average of 6,535 euros per rich person, per year.
And Le Monde looks at the drought currently
causing enormous difficulties across France, notably for farmers.
Already, emergency plans are in operation to purchase and transport animal feed to the worst-affected areas, as well as organising cash compensation for those whose crops are damaged.causing enormous difficulties across France, notably for farmers.
The drought is a global phenomenon, affecting Germany, Russia and huge swathes of China.
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