French press review 23 April 2010

The papers’ websites (the newspaper distributors are on strike for the third day) go big on the French president’s latest run-in with the populace. We also get the heroes and villains of development aid and a report from the frontline in a linguistic battle.

Yesterday, the President Nicolas Sarkozy reprimanded a young man who wiped his hand ostensibly on his jumper after shaking the president's hand. Sarkozy was heard to say “Fais pas le malin, toi,” which we’re translating as "Watch it, you".

Centrist daily Le Monde points out in its headline that this is not the first time Sarkozy has rather lost his poise when coming into contact with the people.

At the Agriculture Salon in 2008, a visitor refused to shake his hand. The head of state said, "Casse-toi, pauv' con!" This we’ll translate as, “Screw you, you wretch.”

According to left wing Libération, the motive for yesterday’s incident was two-fold. As well as the hand wiping, a woman was trying to give the president a letter and a young man joked that Sarkozy would not read it. Visibly irritated, he went back into the town hall for 10 minutes.

Libération also reports with evident pleasure the words of a trio of spectators. “Oooh, look how tanned he is… he's not Arab by any chance?” “Still, he's not bad looking,” and so on. The paper leads with an opinion poll saying Sarkozy has reached a record low in popularity with only 35 per cent approval rating.

Le Figaro has an article on Linkebeek, a small picturesque town in Belgium that has recently had its peaceful atmosphere shaken by hardline Flemishness. A week ago the inhabitants found the roof of their town hall vandalised by big white letters V and L, which stands for Vlaanderen, Dutch for Flanders.

The town magistrate says Belgium is at a pivotal moment. Linkebeek, which has 5,000 inhabitants, is one of six theoretically bilingual towns. Some 85 per cent of the town is Francophone, but because they sent their voting slips in in French, their mayor has still not been officially elected. The affair has been going on since 2006.

The council of Federal Democratic Francophones says the situation is absurd. Out of 15 town councillors only two are Dutch speaking, but if one word of French is uttered in the council everything is cancelled.

“It is lucky that we have meetings beforehand to find out which way people will vote otherwise it would be rather eccentric," one says. It sounds fairly eccentric anyway.

Recently things have taken a more sinister turn. A Flemish initiative caused a scandal: the mayors convinced property developers to provide them with a list of potential buyers so they can put a spanner in the works of sales to Francophones.

Le Monde tells us about a young Croatian girl who woke up from a 24-hour coma speaking fluent German. She understands Croatian but answers in a rich and nuanced German.

A neuro-surgeon says that this is rare, but it does happen. In his 20-year career he has cured five patients who woke speaking English. History doesn’t relate whether this increased tensions in their home towns, but it seems like an unkind fate.

Libération tells that finally Reykjavik airport is being closed. This is the first time since the eruption of Eyjafjöll that Icelandic airspace has been closed.

La Croix runs a story on development aid. The battle is being lost, it says. Most countries in the north are not honouring their promise to support the south.

They promised at an international summit in 2005 to give 0.51 per cent of their gross revenue this year. According to the Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation, the average aid of its member states will be about 0.32 per cent this year.

This figure betrays the fundamental wish that poor countries progress but in limited proportions, according to La Croix.

Last year, public aid increased 0.7 per cent. Some countries increased their donations, including France (by 16.9 per cent), Britain (by 14.6 per cent) and Finland (by 13.1 per cent).

And the villains: Italy was the worst, cutting its by 31 per cent, followed by Ireland, which made an 18.9 per cent cut and Germany, which made a 12 per cent cut.