French weekly magazines review 08 February 2015

For better or worse, you know where you stand with the French weeklies. Or, rather, you know where they stand. Much like most of the French dailies, they wear their heart on their sleeve; the left sleeve or the right sleeve. It colours their choice of stories and how they report them.

DR

This week is fairly typical.

The cover photo of left-leaning Marianne is of France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy looking positively Satanic. The headline is "Le Boulet; Le Retour". The subject is Sarkozy's recent return to the political limelight as leader of the right-wing UMP party after two years in the shadows following his narrow defeat by François Hollande in the last presidential election. The next election is in 2017 and pundits believe Sarkozy wants to run again and return to the Elysée Palace.

The best English translation of "le boulet" would be "the millstone". Marianne's suggestion is that rather than being his party's saviour, Sarkozy is proving a handicap, a millstone around his party's neck.

His declared intention is to rebuild the UMP. The buzz-word is "reassembly", that's to say a bringing together of the party's squabbling factions. It isn't working out that way, says the magazine. Even Sarkozy loyalists are worried, telling Marianne "Sarkozy is dragging us down."

When asked what was the greatest challenge for a statesman, the late British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is said to have replied, “Events, dear boy, events.”

So it is with Sarkozy, the comeback kid, whose energy and determination earned him the nickname "the Energiser bunny". Marianne's six-page autopsy on Sarko's second coming is slugged "events". The latest, the paper says, is the electoral rout in Doubs in eastern France. Last weekend the far-right Front National took first place in a National Assembly by-election there. The Socialist candidate came second. The UMP candidate came third and was eliminated.

“Reality has brutally shattered the illusion of a more unified party," says Marianne.

It is a humiliation for the new president of the right, ie Nicolas Sarokozy, the magazine says.

While shocked party members in France were digesting the result in Doubs, Sarko was in Abu Dhabi, a well-paid guest at a private conference on sovereign wealth funds. The UMP was divided after its executive committee refused to take sides in the second-round vote. Sarkozy had called for voters to stop the FN, warning of a possible “explosion” of the party. Marianne thinks his authority has been "cut to pieces". A local rout has become a national setback.

Needless to say, the magazine revisits other events that are unlikely to boost Sarkozy's popularity, either within the UMP or beyond.There are the court cases, mostly focused on the financing of UMP political campaigns, which may or not have been illegal and about which Sarkozy may or may not have known. The magazine says "the judicial soap opera" is getting closer and closer to Nicolas Sarkozy.

The left-leaning Obs also enjoys the spectacle.

"Sarkozy caught in his own trap" is the headline on its opinion piece. The author begins with some back-handed compliments. Sarkozy has more than two brain cells. He also has certain skills, as he has proved in the past. One credits him with having pushed back the Front National at the polls.

Alas, says the Obs, it took only a small defeat in Doubs for the self-proclaimed saviour of the UMP, of the right, of France, of the euro and even worldwide democracy, for Nicolas Sarkozy to fall into a trap of his own making.

The Obs says Sarko is the "chief architect" of "Neither-nor", that's to say advising his supporters to vote neither for the Socialists nor the Front National. This is misleading. Sarko said that some years ago. Following the Doubs debacle he did no such thing. He said voters should decide for themselves.

The Obs thinks he has committed two mistakes. One is to "de-demonise" the far right by equating them with the party in government. The second, giving his supporters the idea that they can be alternately a Front National voter and a UMP voter. Misleading again, I'd say. The paper claims by moving into the territory of the far right, the issues of national identity, arguments against Roma and “other hogwash”, the UMP is already building bridges.

Coming so soon after the exaltation of the core values of the republic - including freedom of speech - one wonders how the Obs can approve the "demonisation" of the Front National. What shall we "demonise” next? The far left, Christian conservatives, the flabby centre? Which takes us full circle. Too much impassioned opinion. Not nearly enough dispassionate, balanced reporting.

What else is on offer this week? Le Figaro boasts an exclusive interview with Hollywood actor-director Clint Eastwood. Guess what? Eastwood's latest movie "America Sniper" is in French cinemas later this month.

L'Express has a provocative cover, with the headline “The Republic facing Islam”. Inside it explores the issues of the moment; secularism, integration, education.

Finally, Le Monde asks who the hackers are. A mixed bunch, it seems. Spies, patriots, mercenaries and spotty adolescents. If you don't have a firewall, install one now