French weekly magazines review

France's weeklies look at tragedyin the Mediterranean and the rise of the far right in French politics.

The tragic death in the high seas of hundreds of African immigrants trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa shares the limelight with the rise of the Front National (FN) in France.

Le CanardEnchaîné looks back at the reactions of shame and revulsion from around the world as television channels across the globe repeatedly ran pictures of body bags lying on beaches, coffins crammed into warehouses and bunches of people clinging onto broken boats.

The paper claims that amid the reactions to the drama some of the sorrow was genuine, while the rest were crocodile tears. It takes on French Front National leader Marine Le Pen who blamed the migratory phenomenon on immigrants attracted by Europe’s wealth.

They are refugees, insists Le Canard Enchaîné, from Somalia Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, countries where intervention of Western nations left behind failed states where dictatorships have thrived.

L’Express is urging Europeans countries to activate the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. The legislation provides for the transfer of national prerogatives on immigration at EU frontiers.

The right-wing magazine warns that radical Islamism is fanning the rise of populism in France.

According to the magazine, only a tiny minority of France’s six million Muslims are trying to extend their influence in nursery schools, universities, school canteens, hospitals and even at workplaces. Their conduct, according to the weekly, is exacerbating tensions and causing a rise of Islamophobia in crisis-hit France with politicians terrified and lacking ideas to tackle the problem.

Marianne says it is tired of hearing right-wing publications, such as L’Express and Le Point, talk about the salaries of white-collar workers, while the wages of the poor only provoke silence and indifference. It reports that France’s worst-paid workers are eight million in number.

More than 3.6 million of them earned less than 1,055 euros a month including allowances in 2011, 90 per cent of them working in the tertiary sector. A massive 30 per cent of job-seekers work less than 70 hours per month, according to the weekly, with women making up 75 per cent of part-time workers. For Marianne, these are the forgotten of the republic and the ones swelling the ranks of the FN.

Le Nouvel Observateur publishes a shock new poll rating the FN as the most popular party in France today. According to a new survey, carried out by the Ifop polling institute, the radical right-wing party is credited with a 24 per cent opinion rating.

The opposition UMP is at 22 per cent while the ruling Socialists comes third with 19 per cent. The FN is expected to win this Sunday’s second-round election for an area council seat formerly held by the Communist Party in Brignoles in the south-eastern Var region. More than 60 per cent of the constituency’s electorate abstained in the first round.

For Marianne it is all President François Hollande's fault, as he has failed to address the people's grievances 17 months after taking office.

L’Express examines a taboo subject at the Elysée palace - not the controversy over the Roma, nor the gaffes of cabinet ministers nor the unemployment figures. It is Hollande’s weight, according to the publication. It reports that a guest invited for dinner by the president was impressed by the menu of eggs, mayonnaise, cooked meat and chocolate tart served.

He told the weekly that Hollande didn’t stop filling his plate, adding that no one around him appeared bothered. L’Express says Hollande’s hearty appetite may be his way of dealing with stress. One of his ministers told the journal that prescribing a slimming course for the president at the moment is simply unimaginable.