French press review 9 December 2014

There are lots of numbers on this morning's French front pages . . .

Le Monde gives pride of place to Economy Minister, Emmanuel Macron, whose facts and figures are to be examined by his government colleagues tomorrow. Macron's task is the un-simple boosting of growth and economic activity. Apart from the fact that the global business climate is morose on its best days, Macron also has to contend with the rebels in his own socialist organisation who just don't believe that the government has the right sow by the lug when it comes to fixing the economy.

Le Monde expects a lot of debate behind closed doors, a lot of horse trading by people who don't actually own horses, and, finally, a watered down piece of legislation which won't really serve the interests of anyone concerned.

Communist L'Humanité says 100,000 French households have suffered water cuts, because the big supply companies cut people off for non-payment of bills, in strict defiance of a 2013 law intended to protect consumers' right to a water supply, considered a basic human right, beyond the commercial constraints of a contract.

The two big players, Suez and Véolia, have already lost cases and been obliged to re-connect customers. Now, a smaller supplier, Saur is awaiting a court decision, likely to oblige that company as well to re-establish the water supply to a customer who has had difficulty paying his bills. L'Humanité says as many as two million individuals don't have guaranteed access to a sufficient water supply in France.

Libération's front page gives a big zero to the current assessment system in French schools.

The national council responsible for this sort of thing recently recommended an end to the "marks out of twenty" approach to grading school kids, and the implementation of a sort of elevator, with four or six levels indicating whether a particular skill has been acquired or still needs work. The whole idea is to avoid humiliating those who are slower on the uptake, and use the assessment as a boost rather than a sanction.

Critics say the current system helps those who have no need of help, while leaving the others with a sense of exclusion and frustration. Libé's editorial suggests that, in fact, the debate is really about the way in which French society is organised, and the place of school in that society.

This is World Anti-Corruption Day. Catholic La Croix takes the opportunity to examine French attitudes to the un-businesslike business of bribes and under-the-table exchanges, suggesting that most French companies try to behave honestly, but face the problem of competition from Indian and Chinese rivals for whom the payment of bribes to secure foreign contracts is not considered a crime.

The fight against corruption is costly, says an analyst interviewed by La Croix, because companies have to devise a strategy appropriate to each of the environments in which they operate. The rules change depending on the geographical location and the product or service being offered. And situations alter with time and regime change, all of which requires time and energy from the company. But it should be seen as a long-term investment, while we wait for national courts to put their own houses in order so that corruption will eventually become a losing strategy on a global scale.

La Croix looks at the Brazillian national petrol company, Petrobas, where the chief executive and several of his subordinates are currently awaiting trial on suspicion of having defrauded the state of three billion euros, in exchange for 40 million euros in bribes. Most people in Brazil hope that this extremely high-profile case marks the beginning of the end of impunity in a nation currently rated 69th of the 175 countries surveyed in the Transparency International corruption index.

And then there's conservative Le Figaro, reporting on how French troops are fighting the latest generation of highly mobile holy warriors in the African Sahel region.

There are just 3,000 soldiers deployed on a battlefield larger than that on which the Second World War was fought, criss-crossed by the porous borders of five nations. A combination of technological means and human effort has resulted in a "model expeditionary force," to quote an American security institute's assessment of the French effort in north Africa.

But the enemy is not getting any easier to defeat, warns Le Figaro, and France can not afford to go it alone in the Sahel, in the Central African Republic, in Irak. There's a real danger that the model force could become terminally bogged down.