French press review 8 April 2015

Business is the top story on this morning's front pages, with soaring values on the Paris stock exchange. Not all trade unions are happy about the tone of proposed changes to the rules governing negotiations between employers and staff. And the far-right Front National is having trouble explaining its key economic policy.

Le Figaro reports that the latest policy of the European Central Bank, which basically involves spending vast amounts of money to buy debt, has given the French stock exchange an enormous boost.

Despite all the whingeing about crisis, gloom and economic collapse, the combined value of shares in the top 40 companies quoted on the Paris exchange has increased by 20 per cent since January.

According to Le Figaro, Europe plans to spend 1,140 billion euros before September 2016 in an effort to get the Old Continent's economy moving again. And it's already working for the rich people. Mario Draghi's billions, in addition to the beneficial effects of the euro losing ground against the dollar and the collapse in the price of a barrel of oil, mean that businesses are starting to breathe again. And since interest rates continue to tumble, states are paying less to finance their borrowings. The only unhappy campers are the banks, who are worried that their profit margins are being squashed by the same low interest rates.

You can please some of the people some of the time . . .

Communist L'Humanité is not at all pleased.

Their main story is headlined "Government stabs workers in the back by attacking trade union rights."

The "attack" in question is allegedly among the provisions in the new law intended to regulate "social dialogue," meaningful chatter between workers and their employers. The communist daily says the proposed law is going to reduce the status and impact of the committees responsible for security and working conditions, meaning that the health of employees is endangered.

Catholic La Croix wonders why French business leaders, who are, as we've seen, doing very nicely, thank you, refuse to invest their readies in French business. The government is this very day expected to announce measures intended to boost investor confidence. The problem, says La Croix, is that order books remain thin and business leaders are unsure about the future. Instead of profiting from the ready availabilty of cash and low interest rates, the bosses are sitting on the fence.

As for operations in the small business category - those employing 10 people or fewer - relations with the banks could hardly be worse, according to the national credit mediator. He says neither side trusts the other, dialogue is difficult and most small businesses are happier to use their pre-existing overdraft arrangements to cover spending needs, rather than negotiate a much cheaper loan.

Le Monde looks at how the far right Front National (FN) misunderstands, or at least misrepresents, economic reality. The main headline reads "Marine Le Pen and her economists caught in the euro trap."

The article says that FN's predictions of the economic impact of taking France out of the European monetary union are completely unrealistic. Having shifted away from the classic concerns of the far right . . . immigration, national identity, security . . . the followers of Marine Le Pen have been struggling to find competent economic commentators, people who can explain how the policy of leaving the euro would actually work.

Florian Philippot, the vice-president of Le Pen's party, is the man generally credited with the "let's get out of Europe and save France" line of attack but he's actually got some training in economics and is understandably not keen to get into the embarrassing details. Bernard Monot is the man supposed to be supervising Marine Le Pen's economic education with a view to the 2017 presidential election, but he's not great on details, either.