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French press review 18 September 2014

The French papers have eyes only for Scotland this morning . . .  as the Scots vote in a referendum on ending 307 years of union with their English and Welsh neighbours. 

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"The Not Very United Kingdom" is left-leaning Libération's view of the situation as polling stations open.

Communist L'Humanité says today's vote is the result of social anger and will shake the kingdom to its foundations, whatever the outcome.

Catholic La Croix goes for the rather obvious headline, describing the vote as "A crucial choice for the Scots".

Conservative paper Le Figaro wonders if Scotland is going to say farewell to England, finding the suspense "historical".

And Le Monde wins this morning's front page competition with a picture of Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, looking like he has just swallowed an inflated bagpipe and the headline "The opponents of independence want to save the United Kingdom". Which is probably true, both literally and metaphorically.

Scotland currently produces 90 per cent of British oil, 70 per cent of British fish and six-billion-euros-worth of whisky each year.

All commentators agree that, whatever the outcome of today's vote, the fundamental idea of the United Kingdom is going to have to be dragged into the 21st century.

And, of course, if the Scots decide to stay but wrest significant concessions from London, the way will be open for the Welsh to go down the same road. And that will just leave Northern Ireland's Unionists.

Apart from the Scottish attempt to redraw the map of Europe, there's French Prime Minister Manuel Valls trying to make socialist austerity look less austere.

Valls is on the front page of Le Monde, proposing to do away with income tax completely for the least well-off. Already, those who earn less than 6,000 euros per year are exempt from tax. Those in the next income bracket pay five per cent on their earnings between 6,000 and 12,000 and so on, with the amount of tax you are liable to pay increasing as your earnings increase. Now the prime minister is suggesting that the counter should only start to click after 12,000 euros, thus giving the buying power of the least well-off a small boost.

There are a number of problems.

As presented yesterday, it is not clear if the prime minister's plan will be applied to all tax payers, with millionaire footballers and drug barons getting the same advantages as the poor. If not, the proposal might not be to the taste of the Constitutional Council which likes to see French laws respecting the republican ideal of equality. If the brave new deal is for everybody, it'll cost the exchequer a fortune and will give rise to anguished cries from the left about a different sort of inequality.

Manuel Valls is not the only prime minister with problems. Iraq's premier, Haider al-Abadi, has just seen his nominees for the key posts at defence and the interior rejected by his parliamentary colleagues. The problem seems to be related to the question of what to do about the growing military muscle of the Islamic State armed group. The boys are to meet again today to try to resolve the deadlock.

On an inside page Libération reports that this year's US corn and soya bean harvest are going to break records. But the farmers are facing a nightmare, since the huge amounts of grain available have forced prices down and there simply aren't enough train wagons or correctly licensed truck drivers to transport the produce to those who could use it. The US ground transport system for bulk goods is completely saturated by the demands of the shale gas industry.

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