French press review 23 October 2012

Lance Armstrong, genetically modified crops and the US elections are the main front page stories here in France this morning.

Armstrong is the man who came first in the Tour de France cycle race an unprecedented seven times. Not surprisingly. He was cheating.

Now he's been deprived of every title he ever won, and banned from the sport for the rest of his life.

But that doesn't mean we've heard the last of Lance, nor does it mean the end of the debate about doping in cycling.

Armstrong now faces a long series of legal battles as various race organisers attempt to retrieve the prize money they gave the man. He could also face criminal charges for perjury since he clearly lied under oath when denying any connection with Doctor Michele Ferrari, herself a convicted dope-monger.

Armstrong also repeatedly denied using drugs. Perjury is a serious crime under federal law, with penalties including 30 years in jail and fines of up to one million dollars.

As for the sport of cycling itself, a medical specialist interviewed by the Le Monde web site says there does seem to be less cheating among professional road racers since the end of the Armstrong era, and those who are artificially boosting their performances are taking smaller doses.

The same specialist says we should not expect race times to decline by too much as the sport becomes cleaner. But we should expect to see more off days among the top riders since they won't be able to "recover" as quickly as when they could sneak an overnight blood transfusion.

And their physical capacities should diminish over the course of tough days in the mountains, contrary to the bizarre effect of the stimulant EPO which increases the body's mechanical efficiency as stress increases.

As for genetically modified food, it may not be all that bad for humans after all, but nobody is too sure.

You will remember that a recent year-long French study showed that laboratory rats fed genetically modified grub tended to die earlier and develop more cancers than those fed steak, chips and pâté de foie gras.

Now, two food protection agencies have cast doubts on that study, saying it was not scientifically solid. Too few rats were involved . . . there were exactly ten of them . . . and statistical methods used did not justify the conclusions drawn.

Which may, indeed, mean that this particular series of experiments proves very little more than that there's huge pressure on food firms to find ways of protecting crops without poisoning humans. But does that mean that we can safely stuff ourselves with Monsanto corn?

Whatever the answer to that question, the fact remains that we've been eating animals fed on genetically modified fodder for the past 15 years, so perhaps we should be hoping that the rats were, after all, a tragic mistake.

Can Romney beat Obama? That's the front page question in today's Le Figaro, with the implied answer being "yes, just about".

Before last night's final debate, the two main candidates were neck-and-neck at 47 per cent of voting intentions. Now, says Figaro, some polls give the Republican challenger a narrow lead.