French press review 12 June 2012

Two days after the first round of the French legislative elections and five days before the second round, many French papers are in full campaign mode.

Let's start off with our two main political 'tracts'. Leftist Libération is headlining "The National front tears up the right" and notes that the UMP party, who gained nearly the same amount of votes as the Socialist Party, will have a hard time trying to get a majority.

Indeed unlike the left they cannot ally with parties from the same side of the French parliament, which in this case would be the far-right Front National, FN, and the Front Républicain. Libération writes that by qualifying for the second round in 60-odd constituencies the FN forced people to "re-assess their political consciousness".

The UMP is on the brink of imploding in some ways says the leftist paper. A former minister under Sarkozy, Nadine Morano, is said to be having a hard time acquiring votes in the Meurthe et Moselle region. She must be so worried about losing; she's even called on far-right voters telling them that she shared some of their values. Did she not see what happened to Nicolas Sarkozy a month ago when he tried to get FN voters under his belt?

FN leader Marine Le Pen is enjoying every moment of this. Libération looks at six UMP personalities Le Pen said her party would be taking down in the run-offs next week. Confidence is obviously high on the far-right.

Libé also mentions the Socialists own internal problems with Ségolène Royal. The 2007's presidential candidate and former partner of President François Holland is facing-off against a breakaway Socialist in La Rochelle this weekend. Olivier Falorni says he's from La Rochelle, lives and works there and is not willing to give up a potential seat to someone who has just been parachuted in. He’s now being deemed a rogue Socialist who is refusing to obey Rue de Solférino, the Socialist headquarters?

Conservative Le Figaro is enjoying this socialist feud and says the Ségolène Royal problem is a worry for the Socialist Party as Martine Aubry and Cécile Duflot will be heading to La Rochelle to lend their support to their now "official candidate".

Le Figaro also aggressively headlines that "The UMP refuses the diktat of the Socialist Party".  It goes on to explain that in case of there being a Socialist, FN run-off at the weekend, the UMP will support neither candidate.

Over on the cover of Communist L'Humanité, the ills of France's fifth Republic are lamented. It says the dominance of two political parties has led to abstentions with a widening gapbetween those who vote and those elected.