French press review 24 February 2010

It looks like French oil giant Total is losing the fight with trade unions over the proposed closure of its Dunkirk refinery. The strike that's been going on for several days now had threatened to deprive motorists of fuel. But as the communist L'humanité newspaper trumpets this morning, the strikers have received assurances from management that no refineries will be closed in the next five years.

So we can expect to see Dunkirk close in 2016, then.

Leftist Libération is leading with what has been labelled the ‘Soumaré’ affair here in France. With regional elections coming up in less than a month, parties are digging skeletons out fo the closets of their opponents, and in the Val d'Oise region outside

Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party thought they had found struck gold with the Socialists' candidate, Ali Soumaré.

He was, they said, a repeat offender with a criminal record. Frederic Lefevre, UMP spokesman, said that Soumaré, a young black man, drove without a licence and was a violent thief.

The problem was that the violent thief driving without a licence was another Ali Soumaré living in the Val D'Oise... Oops.

Now the UMP is scrambling save face and not look like a bunch a bigots that jump to unfounded conclusions.

The government-friendly Le Figaro is not running the story about the Soumaré affair, but about how Nick Sarkozy is having another shot at 'ouverture', or political openness, by including political opponents in his administration.

This largely failed first time round, with Sarko soon returning to a right-wing agenda once he was happily in the presidential saddle.

Yesterday, he placed Socialist MP Didier Migaud as the president of the audits commission. I wonder if the upcoming regional elections have anything to do with this.

Back in 2008 Sarkozy, as France's newly elected President declared the days of Francafrique, Charles de Gaulle’s pet project in West Africa, were well and truly over. Henceforth, France would work as a partner with former colonies and not as their ex master.

Well, an analysis in Le Monde questions why Sarkozy has visited Gabon no fewer than three times in the last three years, a privilege upon which no other African country has ever been bestowed.

Perhaps, says the paper, Francafrique is not quite as dead as Sarko would have had us believe.

Ties between France and Gabon remain as strong as ever. Following the death of long time leader Omar Bongo last year, France openly lent a helping hand in the presidential campaign of his son, Ali, in elections that observers labelled dodgy - at best.

The paper continues, adding that France expects its back to be scratched after having gone to all that effort for young Ali. French interests in the country include petrol, wood, manganese, and perhaps iron, if Sarko can convince Bongo to renegotiate a deal signed by Bongo Sr in 2008. But this, of course, as an equal partner and not as an ex-colonial power.

Sarkozy is in Libreville today, before scooting across to Rwanda tomorrow to meet President Paul Kagami.

Elsewhere in Le Monde we learn that British PM Gordon Brown is a bit of a bully. A new book written by a columnist from the Observer says that in cabinet and with his staff Gordo has a bit of a temper.

For his part Brown says these are all unfounded lies.