French press review 24 October 2014

Algeria’s surprise refusal to allow French magistrates to take home DNA samples of the seven monks killed in Tibhirine 18 years ago attracts angry reactions from the national dailies.

Le Figaro reports that families of the French monks are scandalized and accuses Algiers of confiscating evidence. The right-wing newspaper says the government's attitude is perceived as an admission of guilt and a recognition of the Algerian military's involvement in the massacre.

La Croix points out that Algiers has always blamed the kidnapping and massacre of the monks on the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), which at the time targeted foreigners in the former French colony.

But, according to the Catholic daily, that version has never been confirmed, and France suspects the military of masterminding the massacre in order to discredit the GIA. France opened an official inquiry in 2004, appointing judges Marc Trevidic and Nathalie Poux to get to the bottom of the massacre.

They were finally allowed by Algerian authorities to travel to the Notre Dame de l’Atlas monastery in Tibhirine, 80 kilometers south of Algiers, earlier this month to witness the exhumation of the monks' skulls and to taDNA samples taken.

Libération underlines that this week’s exhumation was aimed to help clarify the following questions: how the murders happened and whether the beheadings happened before or after the monks' deaths. For Libé, any post-mortem beheading could give credit to the theory that someone tried to hide the real cause of the deaths to implicate Islamists. This why Libe now speaks of the broken hopes of the monk’s families.

Some of today’s papers also examine the tense situation in Tunisia, as the country tightens security in the buildup to Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The Islamists are on the verge of returning, headlines Le Figaro. For the right-wing newspaper the main Muslim party Ennahda is polishing its act, getting ready to show a more presentable face. Avoiding radical fundamentalism in the election, the group does not want to relinquish any power because of its radical ways, as it did after the 2011 parliamentary polls.

A sign of the security challenges posed by Islamist groups to the people of Tunisia can be seen in a hostage crisis underway in the capital Tunis, where women and children are caught up in a gun fight between jihadists and police. The siege erupted on Thursday in a small town outside the capital city.

For the Catholic daily La Croix, Tunisia has witnessed a proliferation of those Islamists suppressed under the former autocratic president .The jihadists have been blamed for a wave of attacks, including last year's assassination of two leftist politicians whose murders plunged the country into a protracted political crisis. The social conditions of Tunisians haven’t improved since the January 2011 revolution, writes the paper, and predicts that Sunday’s election will take place without any great enthusiasm.

Libération eyes Sunday's vote, the first to be staged in the country since the nation's 2011 revolution that ousted veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. It sees the ballot as crucial in restoring stability in the North African nation, the cradle of the Arab Spring revolutionary movements.

The battle for the post-Hollande French Socialist party had begun, writes Le Monde. The party’s opinion has been inspired by the ideological fracture that occurred within the party, with rebels and allies of the embattled French President clashing in broad day light.

According to Le Monde, the pitiful display climaxed on Wednesday when a group of rebel Socialist lawmakers - including three former ministers - abstained in a first parliamentary vote for France's 2015 budget, which nevertheless went through with a small majority. Le Monde believes that the public spat is likely to further embarrass the deeply unpopular Hollande, who has been unable to stem the increasingly vocal dissent within his party, despite two cabinet reshuffles and the ditching of large chunks of his electoral manifesto.