French press review 14 February 2013

The economy, culture, justice minister Christiane Taubira and football feature in today's papers..

Le Figaro’s front page leads with the economy, headlining «Deficits: the ‘French case’ embarrasses Europe”.

The paper displays the forecast figures for the biggest European economies. France, with its 3.5 per cent, is behind Italy and just before Spain with its 6 per cent deficit forecast.

The paper’s editorial ironically reads: “Welcome to Club Med”, a reference to the French holiday resort chain.

Today is an important day for Europe and for France, notes the author. One of Europe’s pillar countries has broken its promises. France has now joined Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy – the countries “guilty of spending the money they don’t have”.

Whatever the excuses are, concludes the editorial, the truth is that France has only itself to blame for its decline.

The financial crisis is having an affect on French culture, reports the Figaro in its culture section.

The Culture minister, Aurelie Filipetti, has announced a 67-million-euro budget cut across the country’s museums, theatres and cultural establishments.

According to the paper, it’s the budget ministry which has demanded this additional cut immediately, to offset a lack of money due to the war in Mali and the general slump in the economy.

The business daily Les Echos gives as its front page story, the historic loss of 5 billion euros by the carmaker Peugeot Citroën.

In an exclusive interview, the chief executive of the company outlines his plan to get the company out of the black hole during his second mandate at the helm.

Libération leads with “Seven justice proposals”. The left-leaning daily’s top section gives details of the upcoming justice reforms designed to reduce the prison population.

Among the proposals is a plan to remove minor road offences from criminal courts’ jurisdiction.

In its editorial, Libération hails the upcoming reforms and praises the Justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who has become a political star in France for her role in parliament, championing the same-sex marriage bill.

The editorialist, Eric Decouty, says that the newly- acquired “stardom” of the minster should be harnessed to ensure the success of the upcoming political reform.

“Christiane Taubira might just be the lucky star of the government which lacks socialist points of reference”.

“The Real in danger” is the headline in the sports daily L’Equipe which displays a picture of yesterday’s match between Real Madrid and Manchester United.

“The Morinho boys will have to fight ferociously if the want to get into the Champions League quarter finals,” says the author of the article.

Is there a new Zahia affair? asks the tabloid Aujourd’hui en France on its front page.

The paper has a picture of French footballer, Yann M’Vila, in connection with a new under-age prostitution affair.

M’Vila’s phone number was discovered on the phone of an under-age prostitute. The player’s entourage denies he has any involvement in the affair.