French press review 9 January 2012

You can have your politics any colour you like in this morning's media. 

Right-wing Le Figaro gives pride of place to the heartening news that the gap between current president Nick Sarkozy and would-be president Frank Hollande has closed to just two points. According to the latest opinion poll, 28 per cent of voters would support the Socialist contender, with Sarkozy gaining in popularity to notch 26 per cent of intentions.

In a front page editiorial, Le Figaro compares the two men, saying Hollande talks a lot but says nothing. He has failed to show how his plans for French schools, for the financial future, for employment are to be financed in our crisis-racked world. Hollande, according to Le Figaro, takes no initiatives, makes no proposals. He simply reacts to things said and done by the president.

But, says Le Figaro, can anti-Sarkozyism be regarded as a political platform, even at its most vicious.

The incumbent, in sharp contrast, is a man of action, braving the harsh blasts of financial difficulty to lead Europe to a safe harbour. He is not afraid of risk, says Le Figaro, proposing unpopular but necessary legislation like the social sales tax, a charge on financial transactions and making an effort to reduce illegal immigration. Even if he's not yet officially a candidate for re-election, says the right-wing daily with questionable logic, he's clearly the man in charge, a chap who knows where he's going.

He knows where he's going today, anyway, since Sarko is due to meet the German Chancellor in Berlin later this Monday for a working dinner. Over the bratwurst, the two leaders will have a few bones of contention since the French decision to go ahead and launch a tax on financial transactions has embarrassed Angela Merkel and threatens to destabilise the Franco-German tandem. The Germans are worried that any additional taxation of the big financial institutions will simply drive them out of Paris and Berlin to the advantage of New York or London.

And if that's not enough to give the odd couple indigestion, they still have the old chestnuts like the euro, sovereign debt, Greece, recession and the paralysis of the interbank lending system to chew over. It promises to be a tough dinner.

Back to opinion polls and French politics with the front page of Libération which announces that 30 per cent of French voters say they do not exclude the possibility of voting for the leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, in the presidential first round in exactly 104 days time.

It is a worrying tendency, if not least because the two main candidates are going to have to woo those far right supporters between the two rounds, and that's never an easy exercise.

Communist L'Humanité looks at an increasing tendency by French employees to take over their mis-managed businesses and run them as workers' cooperatives.

The latest case is the effort by employees of the SeaFrance ferry company to take control of their collapsing concern. L'Humanité says it's obviously a good thing to give workers a predominant voice in the running of their jobs, but the communist daily wonders if an operation run to maximise the good of employees can survive in a pool of sharks whose only interest is to maximise profits.

The article is headlined with a question: "Workers co-op: great hope or last chance", and L'Huma can't really make up its mind. Yes, workers should have more of a say in how businesses are run, but, in the absence of share-holders, where will the capital for future development come from?

L'Humanité says no fewer than 700,000 bosses are approaching retirement age. The question is: should they be replaced by younger bosses or by workers' councils? The answer will affect at least three million employees and could have devastating effects on entire regions. The government is currently considering a law aimed at making the shop floor more democratic by easing the constraints on worker management.

There's not much chance of a worker takeover in the Catholic Church, where the Pope remains the main man simply because he's the only one with God's home number. But the Pope and God do encourage a sort of management committee, full of geezers in funny hats - what Catholics call cardinals. The current head honcho, Benedict XVI, is getting ready to name 22 new cardinals. What is significant about these new red hats is that they will each have a vote in the election of Benedict's successor, and they are all white, predominantly European, frequently Italian. The youngest of the new guys is 55.

And, by the way, if there are just 104 days left before the French presidential face-off, there are exactly 200 days before the opening of the London Olympic Games.