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French press review 30 March 2015

Departmental elections (again), Syria and endebted Greeks are some of the topics catching editorial eyes this Monday morning.

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Several right-wing figures were last night calling on conservatives to avoid any triumphalism in the wake of yesterday's UMP victory in the French departmental elections. Clearly, no one from right-wing daily paper Le Figaro was listening.

This morning's main headline in Le Figaro reads "Right forges ahead, Socialists in tatters".

As things stand this morning, according to the Figaro website, the conservatives will control 65 departments, the left 31, with two results still to be declared. No department will fall into the hands of the far-right Front National.

Left-leaning Libération gives the front-page honours to prime minister Manuel Valls, describing him as "Down, but not out".

Libé's analysis says that, despite yesterday's heavy defeat, the left got off less badly than in 1992, when the right took 76 councils against the Socialists' 21.

Catholic La Croix looks ahead, attempting to see how yesterday's electoral tendencies are likely to play out in the next big clashes . . . December's regional polls and the all-important presidential race in 2017.

Sarkozy is convinced that the resurgent right wing is going to continue its unbroken series of victories and reclaim the presidency.

La Croix points out that both left and right of the political spectrum need to work towards a more convincing level of internal unity. The main fracture in the UMP would seem to be the gulf separating Alain Juppé from Nicolas Sarkozy. For the Socialists the cracks may be lass gaping but there are lots more of them. There are party members who refuse to vote in support of government economic policy, there's the ongoing row with the various shades of green politicians on how to manage the transition away from fossil fuels into a brave new, pollution-free world. To say nothing of various personal battles.

Communist L'Humanité says the electorate have expressed their discontent. It is now time for France's Socialist leaders to change direction. Basically, for L'Humanité, that means ending economic policies based on austerity, policies which are ruining the French economy and leading to a deepening of voters' sense of hopelessness.

Before a second-round vote was cast yesterday, President François Hollande had already announced his determination to maintain his government's economic policy and, indeed, his government personnel. The prime minister was very clear last night: the Socialists understand that voters are dissatisfied but further sacrifices are needed to bring this administration's plans for an economic boost to boiling point.

The signs are positive, according to left-wing analysts; the disaster is total, according to the right.

Le Monde looks at Greek government plans to put their country's economy back on its own feet. The new prime minister Alexis Tsipras has presented a list of 20 measures which he hopes will be sufficient to convince the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank to loan his already heavily indebted government a further seven billion euros.

The word from Brussels is that the list is "promising" and should ensure that Athens gets the next slice of lifeline loan from Europe. Greek taxpayers may not be quite so pleased, since the Tsipras scenario involves boosting state income by three billion euros this year.

On its inside pages, Libération reports from the Syrian city of Idlib, 50 kilometres south of Aleppo. Idlib was recently taken from the army of President Bashar al-Assad by a coalition of Syrian rebel groups. Now the fear is that Islamic State (IS) armed group will profit from the victory by waiting for the rebel coalition to disintegrate and then imposing its own rule. It has happened before, most recently in the city of Raqqa.

Libération says Washington has already decided that the Assad régime is the lesser of the two evils when the alternative is the cave-dweller fundamentalism represented by IS. Barack Obama's bellowing diplomats continue to insist that Assad is a blood-stained murderer with whom no civilised government can negotiate. But for them he's less dangerous that the blood-stained murderers who want to turn the Middle East into a Sharia wasteland. And so Washington is softening the tone. Assad is still a bad guy, but he's OUR bad guy. And that's not too bad.
 

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