French press review 05 March 2014

Surprisingly, Ukraine has almost vanished from the main French newspaper headlines on Wednesday.

The exception this morning is Le Monde, with a main story which attempts to analyse the usefulness of economic sanctions against Russia as a means of getting Vladimir Putin's boys out of Crimea and preventing a war in Ukraine.

Le Monde says Russia has already felt some of the negative effects of the Ukrainian intervention, with Monday's Moscow stock market plunge and a general outflow of foreign capital. The European partners are to decide how to proceed tomorrow but they are far from unanimous, says the centrist newspaper. Germany and Poland, to say nothing of the smaller nations on the eastern fringe of the EU, have solid economic reasons for avoiding a trade war with Russia.

Moscow is in a fragile financial state and Putin is concerned about his international image, he won't want to become a new Mugabe, to quote the French foreign ministry, with reference to Zimbabwe's much sanctioned and little-loved president.

Perhaps yesterday's Nato meeting on the crisis gives a flavour of what we can expect tomorrow in Brussels: Poland and the former soviet states, now members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, are predominantly in favour of a firm stand against Russian aggression. They would like to see an arms embargo, which would give the rowdy neighbours a ticking off, without ruining their own economies.

But the French aren't likely to go down that road, since French shipyards are currently putting the finishing touches to two warships, due for delivery to the Russians this autumn.

Right-wing paperLe Figaro gives pride of place to what it calls government paralysis as ministers wind down their activities in anticipation of a cabinet reshuffle shortly after this month's local elections.

On those very elections, left-leaning Libération says the Socialist Party is playing with fire by refusing to withdraw from constituencies where there'll be a three-way second round race involving the Socialists, the mainstream conservatives and the far-right Front National.

Under the republican pact, the least well placed majority party should withdraw from each triangular race, to ensure the defeat of the Front National. Now, some Socialist candidates are suggesting that, given the extremist convictions of many supposedly conservative UMP contenders, they cannot leave electors to choose between the official Front National and a sort of disguised version of Marine Le Pen's xenophobic, anti-European and exclusive policies, dressed up in expensive UMP clothing.

With the danger that, by splitting the mainstream vote, the Socialist persistence could see many constituencies fall into the hands of the Front National.