French weekly magazines review 22 February 2015

This week's crop of French magazines brings to mind that oft quoted line spoken by Captain Louis Renault, the French prefect of police, played by Claude Rains, in the classic Second World War movie Casablanca: "Round up the usual suspects."

DR

Most of the stories in the spotlight have become all too familiar in recent weeks. France's response to Islamist terror. What is the future for the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo following the slaughter last month of 10 of its journalists. What exactly does it say in Islam's holy book the Koran? The flight to Israel of increasing number of French Jews.

Right-wing Le Point is a little out of step, having tackled all the usual suspects in previous issues. The magazine opts for a story on housing, a regular favourite. It isn't the routine "Property prices booming! How much is yours worth?" so beloved of home owners. Instead, it's about what it calls "the scandal which costs you plenty." Le Point says we - which includes owners and tenants - are being swindled. It accused the State of burning, that's to say wasting, 46 billion euros a year. Yes, you heard correctly. 46 billion euros, a year. "Eureka!" Le Point declares. We finally found the great national cause capable of uniting all the French. A scandal that affects everyone.

There's more: what the paper calls the thousand ills of social housing - that's inexpensive accommodation provided by the state to those thought to need of it. The ills are said to include the unwillingness of the mayors, cronyism, etc. The fact is, the social housing sector is not able to meet people's expectations. The mantra from Socialist politicians since the Charlie Hebdo shock-horror has been to develop a more diverse "social mix". Not much chance of that, it seems. The numbers are more telling than the rhetoric, says Le Point. At present, 1,2 million families are waiting for  low-income housing on the Ile-de-France, where Paris is located, and large cities.

Among the other weeklies, left-leaning Marianne is becoming almost as committed to provocative cartooning as Charlie Hebdo. There are cartoons throughout the magazine. Almost as savage and vulgar as those that typified Charlie Hebdo. Marianne is a firm believer in secularism and freedom of expression, including the right to blaspheme.

One can't help wondering if they might have got rather carried away with this idea, lost the plot, as it were. The headline on this week's front cover is "Assert out values. Resist! in the face of terror". Beneath which is a cartoon of three fierce, angry-looking men with black beards and white robes. The face of terror, I suppose. No weapons are visible. But you could be forgiven for thinking they represent militant Islamists.

If you thought there wasn't much left to say on this subject, you'd be wrong. Marianne fills 30 pages, seasoned with what we'll call Charlie-lite cartoons. Six of them are devoted to non-believers. The magazine says that, according to some studies, 30 per cent of French people are declared atheists. They are more and more numerous but they are finding it difficult to make their voices heard.

Le Figaro magazine picks up on this week's discussions with the Jewish population in Farnce. Anxiety among France's estimated 500,000 Jews was rising even before one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen killed four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris. This week hundreds of Jewish gravestones were knocked over and defaced with swastikas and Nazi slogans. And, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, invited European Jews to escape a perceived rising tide of anti-Semitism by going home - to Israel. A tactless suggestion which angered the French. Though there is no denying that French Jews are migrating to Israel in increasing number; more than 5,000 last year, more than from any other country.

Le Figaro magazine seeks to put a positive spin on this. "French Jews : "Our country is here," is the cover story headline. "Here" being France. On its inside pages it talks to members of the community, young and old. "Why wouldn't we feel French?" asks Vincent Rosner, a Strasbourg doctor whose grandfather moved to France from Hungary. "The immense majority want to stay here," Marianne tells its readers.

Le Monde magazine is still plugging CDs of the Beatles' music towards the back of the book. Album 5 this week, "Help!". Yours for only 9.99 euros.

Elsewhere, there is the usual eclectic mix, including extraordinary photographs. Among them is a black and white shot by Magnum photographer Eve Arnold taken 50 years ago. It shows George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, complete with a Swastika armband, about to address a rally of thousands of members of the Nation of Islam, black Americans who were demanding a separate nation. Rockwell was all in favour of this. He was assassinated two years later.

Back on the well-trodden path, Le Monde mag reports on what it call "the headache" of reconstructing Charlie Hebdo magazine. Still tending their wounds more than a month after the January attack, the survivors face a great many challenges. Among them, convincing new people to work with a magazine continually under threat. What to do with all the money they made from the special issue which sold five million copies, compared with 50 thousand in a normal week. And, solving old conflicts; The "spirit of Charlie", a mix of impertinence, humour, commitment and recklessness, seems far away, it says.