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French press review 7 May 2015

The general election across the Channel dominates this morning's French front pages, with opinions sharply divided on whether David Cameron and his Conservative Party colleagues deserve to be given another five years in power.

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Centrist Le Monde says this is a high-risk exercise for Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, with immigration and the economy as the key issues.

Le Monde points out that there is unlikely to be a clear winning majority for either Cameron or his Labour Party opponent Ed Miliband and that will mean a series of horse trades with smaller parties to cobble together some sort of coalition.

Le Monde also says that both Cameron and Miliband are fans of an economic policy based on austerity.

Catholic La Croix says the 45 million British voters are unsure of the future, and this despite an enviable economic growth rate and a declining number on the dole. But, says the editorial in the Catholic daily, the generally rosy economic picture actually disguises huge regional and social inequalities.

Whoever takes up the leadership baton after this electoral sprint is going to have to work to rebuild social and human solidarity in a country threathened by division and closure to the rest of Europe. Neither would be a good thing says La Croix.

Left-leaning Libération's main headline suggests that the United Kingdom is anything but.

Libé says Ed Miliband has every chance of becoming the next prime minister, even if the left-wing paper accepts that he will do so at the head of a motley assemblage. Cameron is criticised as a leader for the super-rich, a man who has done nothing in five years to narrow the gap between the two ends of the income spectrum.

Libération points out that you would have needed a minimum of 136 million euros to get onto this year's Sunday Times rich list; a mere 70 million would have got you into the top 1,000 in 2014. But the average British income has been static since 2010 and more than one million people have needed help from food bank charities in the past 12 months.

Even the employment statistics may turn out to be white lies, since there's a thing called a "zero hour" contract whereby you are technically (and statistically) employed, but you don't work or get paid unless your employer feels he has enough for you to do.

Cameron has been a success, says Libé, more than a little tongue in cheek. A success who has turned the concept of "conservative compassion" into a means of further dividing rich and poor. The Conservative prime minister has been, for Libération, "effective but unfair". And the harsh reality is that, if many voters feel that Labour Party proposals in health, education, housing and money management are closer to real social justice, they are unlikely to be efficient. And so the left is beaten before a vote is counted. It's a sad scenario.

Communist L'Humanité and right-wing Le Figaro both look elsewhere for their front page stories.

A day early L'Humanité celebrates the allied victory in Europe on 8 May 1945. The front page reproduces Yevgeny Khaldei's famous photograph of a Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the German parliament in Berlin, an event which actually took place a week earlier that the official end of hostilities. And the image had to be retouched to conceal the number of presumably stolen wrist watches being worn by the Russian soldier helping the man with the flag.

L'Humanité notes that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is one of the few European leaders who will travel to Moscow this week to take part in Russian celebrations to mark the anniversary of the end of the war in Europe.

Right-wing Le Figaro wonders if Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem should abandon her proposed reform of the secondary school system, proposals which have drawn the ire of the teaching unions, numerous commentators and at least 150 opposition deputies who have signed a petition to the president.

The teaching of Latin is among the targets of the reform, the subject being considered elitist and not a great return on investment. That is presumably what inspires Le Figaro to give its front page editorial a Latin headline, the ringing biblical injunction "Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat", "Let him who has ears hear."

My guess is that it'll take more than a bit of Latin to scare Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.

Sports daily L'Equipe gives the front page honours to Lionel Messi, the man who scored two brilliant goals in four minutes last night to see his Barcelona romp to victory over Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. The headline, "Kaiser Messi," suggests that the boys at L'Equipe don't expect to sell too many copies of today's paper on the other side of the Rhine.

The return leg is next week in Munich and the Champions League decider will be played in Berlin, whoever's involved.

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