French press review 14 October 2014

There's plenty of advice on this morning's front pages.

Le Monde offers to tell us why the French political system has run out of steam.

Communist L'Humanité proposes six ways of avoiding budgetary austerity.

Catholic La Croix suggests how the eurozone should be reformed in order to stop the whole show from going down the gurgler.

Libération and Le Figaro are more direct.

Libésays the debate over unemployment benefit is a further nail in the coffin of socialist government unity.

Le Figaro says Turkey's refusal to open a support corridor to the kurds fighting Islamic State elements in the Syrian city of Kobani has handed that city over to the holy warriors.

First, then, French politics.

Le Monde says France is living through an unprecedented crisis of confidence between the French and those who rule them. The unhappy couple, Hollande and Valls, are unpopular, incapable of achieving anything, the ruling majority is riven by dissent, Europe is likely to refuse French budgetary proposals.

According to one trade union official, ordinary people no longer believe that the country is being controlled by those supposed to be governing. Even the analyst Jacques Attali recognises a state which has lost power.

Against that background, the extreme right Front National is making huge gains with its populist message of France for the French and to hell with everyone else, especially Europe and African immigrants.

Left-wing Libération looks at the debate on unemployment benefit currently ravaging the government, caught between the urgent need to save money and a desire to ensure that any reform of the social security system has at least the appearance of social justice.

French unemployment is at a tragically record level, with nearly three-and-a-half million people without any work at all, and more than five million surviving as part-timers.

Obviously, that's a huge drag on the dole, already losing money hand over fist. Libération reckons that the accumulated debt by the end of next year will be 25 billion euros. Clearly, something has to be done.

The left-leaning paper's editorial welcomes the debate, saying the chronic debt can be discussed without sacrificing any socialist principles. But Libération says there's been a problem of communication, with Prime Minister Valls and the man in charge of the economy, Emmanuel Macron, failing to explain that, despite recent calls for change, they are committed to the joint negotiations involving government, employers and unions, due to produce a reformed social security system by 2016.

Perhaps, suggests Libé, Paris has provoked this dispute specifically to impress the mandarins in Brussels who will, starting tomorrow, begin to dissect the French budget for 2015. As a political strategy, that seems fairly dodgy, and it's hardly that easy to pull the wool over the eyes of the European money men.

L'Humanité doesn't believe in austerity. The communist daily says efforts to reduce the deficit to 3 per cent of GNP are counterproductive and doomed to failure. They don't have any suggestions to make on how else France can meet its obligations under the stability pact which underpins the single currency.

L'Humanité would also like to see real reform of the tax system, a harder line with employers, an end to the pay freeze for civil servants, more support for local investment, and a real political commitment to energy change, away from polluting fossil fuels towards wind, wave and solar power.

If Europe is to be saved, according to Catholic La Croix, France will need to reorganise its employment sector; Italy needs to become more efficient; Germany needs more investment; and Spain needs to offer a future to the country's 25 per cent unemployed.

Once all that has been sorted, Europe will lose its reputation as the weak link of the global economy.

Le Figaro devotes its front page editorial to the battle for control of the Syrian city of Kobani, saying defeat will be a disaster for the inhabitants who face either exile or extermination. And it's also a disaster for the military policy being used by the fearful allies. Dropping ten million dollars worth of bombs on Syria every day has had no serious effect in slowing the advance of Islamic State.

Says Le Figaro, those who started this battle do not have the right to delegate responsibility for the outcome.