French press review 1 November 2011

Today is a public holiday in France, so there are fewer papers than usual. Those that have appeared discuss of Unesco's recognition of Palestine, Franco-German reactions to the euro crisis and the return of Botswana's San to their homeland. And why a German homeopath isn't the Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

Le Figaro gives pride of place to Israel's reaction to the decision to admit Palestine as a full member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Unesco.

The Jewish state is angry and says that the decision has damaged prospects for middle eastern peace. Washington is angry, too, and has announced that the US will no longer contribute to the organisation's budget. That means yesterday's vote cost the organisation 70 million dollars, or about one quarter of Unesco's annual financial needs.

Le Figaro explains that Unesco membership could allow the Palestinians to hamper Israeli construction projects in the heart of Jerusalem, if the new member can get certain religious sites classified as part of the global heritage.

The Palestinians accuse the Jewish authorities of attempting to wipe out all traces of Arab history in Jerusalem. Israel has menacingly said that the vote will have political and financial consequences.

Le Monde looks at Franco-German relations in the light of the common position taken by the neighbouring states on the management of the Greek debt. Deputies from the ruling UMP here in France have been organising working groups with their colleagues in Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union with a view to better aligning common financial policy, Le Monde reports. But, it says, despite all these outward signs of neighbourliness, the economic gap between the two countries remains enormous.

The Germans export more, they spend more than France on research and development, they have a much lower rate of unemployment, and a totally different tax structure. So a real common policy in reaction to the crisis in the eurozone will not be all that easy to hammer out.

French health insurers say they are being bled dry by new taxes, as the authorities desperately search for new sources of revenue. The state hopes to collect an extra billion euros by taxing the money the health insurers take in. The insurance companies say they can't pay, and that a vital part of the national health machine is about to collapse.

On inside pages, Le Monde looks at the return of the San people to their ancestral lands in Botswana. The San were expelled from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 1997, in order to protect the wildlife. Proud of their 30,000-year association with the semi-desert region, the San went to court to contest the expulsion. And they won.

Since 2006, they've had the right to use traditional wells in the game reserve, and even to dig new wells. But that doesn't mean that life is bright for the 50,000 Botswana San, the descendants of the first people to live in southern Africa. They have not got the right to hunt inside the game park, nor can they return with their herds of grazing animals.

Over the past 40 years, these traditional nomads have been obliged to adopt a more and more settled existence. From being one of the most autonomous human groups on the planet, the San have been reduced to living on government charity. Fifty-five per cent of the San are carriers of the Aids virus.

And a major part of the problem, according to Le Monde, is the fact that the San ancestral lands contain not just a game reserve the size of Croatia but diamond resources estimated to be worth 2.5 billion euros.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been suggesting a change in the law of succession for the British Royal Family. As things currently stand, a first-born girl can not become Queen if she has a younger brother. It's been like that for centuries.

The boys automatically get to sit on the throne, at the expense of their older sisters.

All that could be about to change.

If it had changed ealier, the current English monarch would be a, well, German lady by the name of Frederique Von Der Osten, a direct descendant of Queen Victoria and William ll, now working as a homeopathic doctor in Halle. She says she's always been conscious of her royal heritage, and of the fact that a change in the law of succession would have put her in line for the English throne.

Just to be on the safe side, the nearly-queen has brought her daughter up to have a special interest in things royal. The daughter is Felicitas, she's 25 and runs a marketing company. The day David Cameron makes that call, Felicitas is ready to take on the throne.