French press review 16 March 2013

Whether France should arm Syrian rebels to fight the Assad regime, the ongoing investigation into the Merah murders, thriving prostituion in France and does former French First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy compare President François Hollande to a penguin? That's all in the French papers today..

Right-wing newspaper Le Figaro questions François Hollande’s determination to involve Europe deeper into the Syrian conflict, as the French President announced his decision to give missiles to Syrian rebels against Bashar Al-Assad’s regime earlier this week.

The paper wonders: “Should France arm Syrian rebels?” or is this decision a dangerous one, made by a French President “intoxicated by his campaign in Mali?”.

British Prime Minister David Cameron declared that the UK would follow France in this venture, calling it a “strategic imperative”, the right-wing newspaper takes a look at the difficult discussions to come in order to convince other European Union members to follow.

A year after the series of murders perpetuated by jihadist Mohamed Merah in the southern French city of Toulouse, left-wing daily Libération reports on the ongoing investigation and the questions that remain to be answered.

For reminder, Mohamed Merah killed three young students and a professor from a Jewish school in Toulouse, as well as two soldiers in the nearby city of Montauban in March of last year. The terrorist attack became a national security priority and the young man was identified, hunted down and killed when the intervention squad raided his apartment on 22 March 2012.

Since the tragedy, families of victims have accused the DCRI, the French central intelligence service, of not stopping Mohamed Merah before his murder spree as evidence that the young jihadist was well known by the police and intelligence services.

Tabloid Aujourd’hui en France this weekend publishes an investigation into prostitution in France. A decade after the French government passed a law against public sexual solicitation; the tabloid explains that mafias are still running a very important and strong prostitution network with an estimate of up to 40,000 prostitutes.

According to the paper, 90 per cent of street walkers in France are illegal immigrants exploited by human trafficking networks.

And finally the controversy of the weekend comes from former French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, so much of a controversy in fact that both Le Figaro and Aujourd’hui en France decided to give the story a front page feature.

In her fourth album, “Little French Songs”, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy criticizes and makes fun of an enigmatic “little penguin”, with a “cavalier look”, standing “all alone in his garden” in her song Le pingouin. In the song, the penguin is also described as rude, irreverent and lacking both charisma and manners.

The big deal, you ask? According to French media, the lyrics are a direct reference to François Hollande and the frosty treatment of the Sarkozy couple on the day when he took over as President, notably declining to accompany them to the car that carried them away from the presidential Elysee Palace.

Although Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has not confirmed the reference, this might just be the most controversial and fascinating story of the weekend, with a well deserved press coverage. But that’s just one man’s opinion.