French press review 11 June 2014

Strikes, fraud, the national budget and a law on euthanasia make up the main stories on this morning's far-from-cheerful front pages. But there's also football to cheer us up a bit.

The strikes involve train drivers, taxis, part-time workers in the entertainment business. Catholic daily La Croix wonders if France is beyond reform, deciding after mature reflection that, no, the fault is to be laid at the feet of the nation's leaders who have failed to convince the electorate of the need for radical change and then to have the courage to defend necessary changes against the anger of pressure groups. Which may, in the long run, mean that France is, indeed, beyond reform.

Communist L'Humanité, with the sort of logic that led to five-year plans and a Soviet Union with nothing to eat but cucumbers, says the rail strike is to save the rail sector. Trade unionists in the transport business fear that the government wants to carve up the rail division and then sell off the parts. Because privatisation is synonomous with job losses, they believe. The government says change is inevitable.

The fraud is on the front page of Le Monde and involves that august institution, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).

There is now more than a slight suspicion that the gentlemen bankers at HSBC were encouraging French customers to defraud the local tax authorities by hiding their money in Switzerland.

Three thousand people are believed to have profited from the illicit scheme, though at least one of them, the former tennis star Henri Leconte, says he puts his money in the Monaco branch of HSBC and never knew he had an account in Switzerland. Ignorance is not only bliss, it also pays nicely. Until you get shopped.

Conservative paper Le Figaro is happy to announce that the forthcoming budget debate is likely to lead to bloodshed in the French National Assembly. Not only will practically every cost-cutting proposal be objected to by the right-wing opposition, several rebel Socialist deputies are likely to have a field day, especially when it come to the bit where the government tries to knock 30 billion euros off spending on social security. One rebel socialist warns that there will be "butchery, blood, guts and intestines". To which the Socialist Party's parliamentary leader replied, with less colour, that voting against the government would be a serious political act.

Two years ago candidate Hollande promised a law on ending human life in a dignified way for those suffering and incurable. Nothing has changed since then, perhaps because the government does not want to open another social can of worms when its popularity is at an all-time low, and judges that there are other, more significant, battles to be fought.

The problem is that a number of medical personnel are currently before French courts, accused of murder for their alleged roles in the deaths of patients under their care. The current law is unworkable and unrealistic and justice is unlikely to be served, says Libération, until a real debate takes place and fundamental legal changes are made. But things are unlikely to happen quickly.

We warned you yesterday that the world was going to be football-shaped for the next four weeks, as the Brazillian footy-fest gets going.

Even Le Monde's normally sober science pages are getting into the swing, with an article on that modern speciality, the false foul. We've all seen it, an attacking player races into the opposition penalty area, loses control of the ball and his own legs and then launches himself into the air like a suicidal skydiver, screaming in agony and clutching his left ankle. The nearest defender is standing, completely innocent, stock still, at least three metres away. The referee is pointing to the penalty spot and searching for the pocket in which he keeps his red and yellow playing cards. They call it football, folks, and we're going to see quite a few skydivers over the next month.

According to Le Monde, research by a group of Australian scientists on no fewer than 60 matches involving first division sides in France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Italy and Australia, has shown that players fell over a total of 2,803 times. Just six per cent of those falls were pure acting but falls are indeed a lot more frequent in the opponents' penalty area. And not a single one of the obvious cheats was sanctioned by the referee.

Apparently, it can all be explained in terms of simple animal psychology, since most creatures will try to fool predators by feigning injury. But animals are careful not to overdo it for fear of ending up like the boy who cried "wolf".

The Australian scientists have one useful piece of advice for the men who will ref the matches at the World Cup. They should watch out for the arc of the diver, a posture used only by those about to enter the water head-first and by those who are faking an unprovoked fall on a football pitch. Le Monde suggests that some of those unsuccessful in their pursuit of World Cup glory might try for Olympic medals in the diving pool.