French press review 31 May 2013

The national dailies' frong pages are dominated by France’s worsening unemployment figures and the united front of the leaders of France and Germany in the search for economic recovery for the recession-hit eurozone.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to push for jobs, growth and reforms after their meeting to prepare for an EU summit at the end of June in Paris on Thursday.

Les Echos salutes Merkel’s approval of Hollande’s proposal for more eurozone summits with a full-time president for the Eurogroup and the establishment of an informal grouping of finance ministers to oversee the bloc's economic policy.

The economic newspaper says that the spectacular breakthrough came as a great surprise considering the rather tense atmosphere which has characterised relations between Paris and Berlin, since Hollande’s accession to power.

The Franco-German meeting came as the latest figures of registered jobseekers in France hit a record 3.26 million after jumping by 39,800 in April. This is the 24th consecutive month of rising unemployment and Aujourd’hui en France says up to 1,327 new unemployed are registering every day, as opposed to 800 in May last year.

Hollande blames the bad job figures on a lack of competitiveness and fewer opportunities for youth. As he vows to stick with his longstanding pledge to turn the trend around by 2014, Le Figaro insists that no serious economist shares his optimism. According to the right-wing newspaper, the vast majority of French workers don’t believe in the president’s ability to deliver on growth within the deadline he has set.

Libération welcomes a little lift in Hollande’s opinion poll ratings, as he resumed his meet-the-people tour of the country with a trip to the south-western towns of Rodez and Castres on Wednesday and Thursday.

The left-leaning paper reports that Hollande was in very high spirits as he worked the crowds, determined to prove that he is not scared of confronting the anger of people in the streets.

Aujourd’hui en France highlights the desperation of struggling French families reeling under spiralling water and electricity bills as France's spring becomes one of the longest autumns in recent history.

It investigates how some 5,000 families managed to save up to 500 euros within six months through simple tips, such as watching for leaking taps, maximising the use of daylight, switching off lights in empty rooms and getting children to learn the new rules.

Libération takes up the bombshell that has landed right in the middle of the Bernard Tapie affair that led to the two-day judicial interrogation IMF chief Christine Lagarde last week. Magistrate Pierre Estoup, one of three judges who presided over the arbitration panel that granted a massive 400 million euros as damages to the controversial businessman, has been taken in for questioning.

The ruling was in settlement of a dispute between the businessman and partly state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais over his 1993 sale of sports group Adidas.

Lagarde, at the time France’s finance minister, has come under fire for accepting arbitration when the French state was not obliged to do so. That has set the left-leaning Libé wondering whether someone fixed the match, then-president Nicolas Sarkozy  for example.

As the French government is looking to formally become a civil party in the case, Communist Party daily L’Humanité says Tapie has been a very dear friend to Sarkozy, describing the arbitration on the massive 400 million pay out as a state scandal.