Skip to main content

French press review 21 February 2015

The Socialist party swept the board in elections here in France in 2012, winning the Presidential and the Parliamentary elections. With a clear majority in the National Assembly, they are the party in government.

Advertising

However, the party is a broad church, ranging from Social Democrats to more traditional Socialists. It's been clear for some time that they are not all singing from the same hymn sheet, and this week's row over the so-called Macron Law - which aims to liberalise the French jobs market and stimulate economic growth - provided a vivid illustration.

What do French voters think about this? Well, the popular daily Le Parisien publishes an "exclusive" opinion poll this morning saying that 60 per cent of those questions - 1,002 people aged 18 and older, said to be representative of the French population - believe the Socialist Party will implode. That's to say fall apart, suffer a catastrophic collapse.

The paper reminds us that the Party is deeply divided on economic issues. Between 30 and 40 Socialist Party deputies for have for months opposed the reform policies championed by President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Their opposition this week prompted the government to adopt the Macron law without a vote in the National Assembly, which they feared they would lose. The government survived a no-confidence vote on Thursday. But divisions within the party have widened.

The paper does not explore how this expected implosion will unfold. Still, the fact that leftist objectors did not vote to topple the government and trigger a snap general election - which their Party would almost certainly lose - suggests they care more about keeping their jobs, and keeping out of power the right-wing opposition, than ideological purity.

Le Parisien tries to find an angle to amuse its readers. It has a story on the government's public information campaign on the new Macron Law. The star of the show is a drawing of a jar of face cream, labelled "Loi Macron", with the legends "Enriched formula" and "Apply every day;" The text below the graphic promises to "unleash untapped growth potential," "invest in productive sectors" and "work against Sunday compensation", the latter a reference to permitting shops to open on Sunday's, which is anathema to the Left, who think the downtrodden workers are entitled to a day of rest.

These are serious issues in difficult times, of course. But, we are allowed a chuckle from time to time.

Not many chuckles in this morning's edition of Libération. They think the government's face cream PR campaign, described by Libé as "a rather clumsy computer graphic", is "a blunder". The paper says the campaign went wrong on Twitter, where it caused outrage, especially among notaries - members of the legal profession whose restrictive practises are threatened by the new law. The ad is said to have astonished, annoyed and been mocked. Not the first PR cock-up in Libé's view. The communication wallahs published a video explanation of Prime Minister Valls's actions and an animated super hero who looked like him.

The paper teases its report on the high jinx surrounding the new law, with the extraordinary headline "Loi Macron : Four days that changed the Quinquennium." I didn't know what that meant either. So I looked it up. A "Quinquennium" is a period of five years. The five years in question being the mandate of France's Socialist government and President.

The story inside is an hour by hour, blow by blow voyage through the four days leading up to the contra temps in the National Assembly. Meat and drink to politics junkies, I suppose. Though it offers few clues to how this has changed the political landscape.

The left-leaning daily's cover story promises comprehensive coverage inside on what it calls "De-radicalisation. France's Counter-Jihad." The increasing numbers of young people tempted by Islamist terrorism is pushing France to experiment - a bit late in Libé's view - with methods to curb their violent urges.

Right-wing Le Figaro is out of step with the rest this morning. It leads on the seasonal flu which is sweeping in France, with what it calls a rare force this year: two million French have already contracted the flu virus, resulting in 728 severe cases and 70 deaths.

That's a taste of the French papers this morning.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.