French press review 4 August 2010

August is known to be a notoriously sleepy month in news, and this Wednesday morning is proving no exception for the French press. Top stories across the board are taking a backwards glance at the news, with communist L’Humanité remembering what happened on this very day two centuries ago, and right-wing Le Figaro rifling through Marilyn Monroe’s personal memoirs.

Left-wing Libération says that it has managed to dish some dirt of its own by publishing a letter allegedly written by Woerth back in 2008 when he was budget minister. Sections of the letter appear to show that Woerth had intervened on behalf of the César family, to see to it that they avoided heavy taxation on some 27 million euros. Day after day the current labour minister denies any involvement and knowledge of the Bettencourt tax evasion. Raising an unpaired eyebrow the paper asks if he was indeed complicit in the César tax dodge, then why should there be any reason to believe that he was unaware of the L’Oréal heiress' devious ways.

No doubt it’s going to take more that the fresh air of the Chamonix valley, where the labour minister is currently holidaying, to see him relaxed and rejuvenated after this latest eruption.

Communist L’Humanité leads with the ominous headline “the 4th of August 1789 - the night that still haunts the upper crust” arguably one of the most important dates in the history of the French revolution.

On that night two centuries ago delegates rose one by one to propose new reforms and to surrender class privileges. Peasants were no longer tied to their landlords, fees evaporated, as did all ties to the church. The nobility and the clergy gave up their exemptions from taxation. So you can see where the paper is going with this one. How far France has come since then, asks the paper. One only has to think of Bettencourt and co. to see what the paper is getting at. Sarkoy gives preferential treatment to the powerful says the page-two editorial.

And finally Le Figaro makes a front page song and dance over the publication of Marilyn Monroe’s diaries. The paper boasts that it was the first paper to get a look in and found intelligent and poetic writing with references to a certain Mr. Arthur Miller of course, as well as other literary favourites Beckett and Joyce.

Not just a pretty face then, the paper can hardly believe. Critics of the publication of private writing may also note Le Fig's final but perhaps crucial point. Marilyn it gasps, a name with such significance! Cultural significance you may wonder? Well yes, but money spinning potential too beams Le Figaro.