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French weekly magazines review 27 July 2014

The Middle East is everyone’s front page story this week as pro-Palestinian protests ended in violence in the Barbès district of Paris and the suburban town of Sarcelles in the outskirts of the capital.

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“Day of hatred in France” headlines Le Point, illustrating its special six-page supplement with a photo of youths taken during the violent demos in Sarcelles.

Le Point says that while protesters around the world, in London, Germany, Sudan, Chile and Morocco carried placards calling for the liberation of Palestine, those in France were anti-Semitic, some attacking synagogues and Jewish shops.

L’Express regrets that some fractions of the left are supporting pro-Hamas activists in France, hoping to make them forget that they have been unable to provide jobs for local young people.

Marianne’s coverage of the demonstrations in France includes an article by its publisher Jean-François Kahn. He says he has had enough of the handful of ultra-pro-Palestinians and ultra-pro-Israelis taking advantage of the tragic Middle East conflict to hurt wounded minds and divide the French nation.

In an editorial entitled “Hatreds”, Le Nouvel Observateur deplores the absurd and tragic fact that the political controversy on anti-Semitism has become the catalyst of communal hatred in France.

It doubts the ability of the French to conjure up anything capable of ending the tragedy at a time when Hamas and the Netanyahu government perceive negotiations as a ploy to buy time.

For the left-leaning magazine, even if the provocations of the aggressor justify the right of reprisal the avenger is no better than the one bearing the brunt.

Le Canard Enchaîné points to a dilemma facing President François Hollande.

Is it the violence that forced his government to ban the demonstrations or the ban that provoked the violence?

And it has a prayer for the people of Gaza enduring the bloody ordeal, trapped as they are in their tiny and land-locked homeland and dying in dozens everyday - that the world may find a way of getting Hamas to stop turning Gaza’s people into cannon-fodder and that Israel’s Benyamin Netanyahu may end pursuit of a deadly and disproportionate response in the densely populated region.

L’Express reports from the new Kurdish republic cut out of northern Iraq where the authorities in Erbil have been diverting a growing chunk of the country’s oil revenue right under the nose of Baghdad. It reports that a 275-metre-long oil tanker left the Turkish port of Ceyhan on 22 May with 159,000 tonnes of crude in search of clients. This is as the national state-owned oil marketing company Somo is no longer capable of fulfilling its mission due to the Islamist insurgents near Baghdad.

Israel has ended up buying the whole shipment with a fat discount of 93 dollars per barrel, instead of 105 on the world market.

Baghdad has reportedly filed an injunction with the International Chamber of commerce to block the sale. But, according to L’Express, an expert on the dossier says it could take up to four years before the matter comes up.

Since the Kurds have chartered two more tankers, for L’Express the clearest sign that the dismemberment of Iraq has begun. The journal is also reporting that the autonomous region of Kurdistan which includes the oil refining city of Kirkuk lies over an estimated five billion barrels of oil reserves.

Now, if you liked the story of the trains that were too big, you will adore the latest about train tunnels that are too low. It’s Le Canard Enchâiné again making the revelation that truckers looking to use the new rail-freight freeway between Pas-de-Calais in the north and Les Landes in south-western France will have to deflate their shock absorbers and tyres to fit in new trains specially constructed for the service.

The contract cost the cash-strapped public railway company the Reseau Ferré de France 155 million euros and it needs to cough up 311 million euros more to adapt the rail lines for the new traffic, according to Le Canard.

The problem, it says, is that they will have to increase the height and width of 14 tunnels due to the size of the lorries.

And Le Canard Enchaîné takes a look at the last presents Nicolas Sarkozy handed out to his friends before leaving the Elysée Palace in 2012. According to the weekly, he dished out nearly 22-million-euros-worth of special ministerial funds to his close collaborators.

Le Canard says Sarkozy’s bosom buddy Jean-François Copé got 2.2 million euros, allegedly for services rendered at the helm of the UMP party, outgoing prime minister François Fillon received just over two million euros and ex-finance Minister Valérie Pécresse pocketed 2.1 million euros.

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