French press review 9 September 2011

A southern Socialist is in court for his French connections.  Will Barack Obama's economy package restore his poll standing?  Will prices fall in the autumn? The European middle class feels the pinch. And where is Kadhafi?

The indictment for corruption of Jean-Noël Guérini, the Socialist Party chief in Marseille, dominates Friday’s French newspapers.

Libération reports that he is facing multiple counts of association with the criminal underworld. Les Echos says Guérini’s lawyers have challenged the phrasing of the main charge brought against him. They are pointing to a political plot, hatched by the ruling UMP.

Aujourd’hui en France/Le Parisien underlines that the Socialists are urging Guérini to relinquish all the elected positions he is holding as they look to put house in order ahead of the vote.

Libération says the judicial problems of the Socialist senator come as a bad deal for the Socialists, as they fall right in the middle of the party’s presidential primaries.

According to Libé, the Guérini affair could be a "Pandora's box”, as many more names are likely to emerge because the telephones of several top Socialist officials were tapped on the state prosecutor’s orders.

President Obama’s jobs plan unveiled before Congress on Thursday is another top story in this morning’s French papers.

Le Figaro, quoting US press reports, says the plan could cost up to 300 billion euros. According to the right-wing paper, the plan is a daring pre-electoral gamble as Obama’s popularity rating is down to 40 per cent with up to 60 per cent of voters disapproving his handling of the economy.

Les Echos says Obama is targeting the creation of one million jobs, hoping to bring down US jobless figures which continue to stagnate at 9.1 per cent of the working population.

The economic newspaper says he has promised tax breaks for small companies and a giant infrastructural reconstruction programme funded by tax increases on the richest American fortunes.

Le Figaro wonders whether Obama’s big speech approach, which helped him sell his Afghan and health reform policies will work, this time around. The paper notes the determination of the Republican-led congress to wreck the plan.

It quotes the Washington Post which holds that Americans will support a reelection strategy that presents Obama as a non-partisan leader, more interested in solving plans than waging ideological battles.

Also in Les Echos, a real estate bubble in France as the value of old homes soared to a record high in Paris trading at 8,150 euros per square metre, according to the latest official statistics.

The economic newspaper, however, stresses the slow progress of prices in France’s 20 largest cities. The paper claims that the government scheme to tax capital gains on secondary home sent winds of panic blowing through the real estate sector.

As French purchasing power stands at a record low, the newspaper predicts a drop in prices during the autumn.

La Croix worries that once better-off families all over Europe are now struggling under mounting economic difficulties accruing from the debt and budget crisis.

The Catholic daily took a guided tour of middle-class families around the euro zone. They told the newspaper how they were shaping up to face austerity budgets and the red economic indicators.

Le Figaro also begins its coverage of the commemoration of 9/11 with a look at Ground Zero 10 years after. According to the paper, forensic experts are examining 21,800 human fragments belonging to unidentified victims.

Libération also updates its readers on the hunt for fugitive Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi. Libé highlights reports circulated by the rebels that he could still be hiding in a bunker in the capital Tripoli.

Some of the insurgents told the paper that Kaddafi held a meeting with internal security chiefs and Muslim faithful in the southern Libyan town of Bani Walid, contradicting claims by some circles that he had crossed into Niger.

A Tuareg chief and top member of Kadhafi’s clan spoke to Le Figaro about the panic and confusion that took hold of the regime in the days preceding the fall of Tripoli.

Kadhafi is reported to have taken off with 20 per cent of Libya’s gold stocks, 29 tons of gold worth about one billion euros.