French press review 24 April 2013

Marriage and money are the main topics in this morning's French front pages.

Yesterday, by 331 votes to 225, the law allowing marriage between people of the same sex was passed by the French parliament.

The Communist paper L'Humanité is delighted; right wing Le Figaro thinks it may all turn out to be unconstitutional; Catholic La Croix wonders, without rancour, at the cost of a very devisive debate for the socialist majority.

Marie-George Buffet of the Communist Party celebrates the law as a "great human advance". She ended her speech in the debate in the National Assembly with a rousing call to "let them marry this summer".

That might be hoping for a bit too much, if Le Figaro is to be believed. The right wing paper says that opposition UMP deputies and senators have asked the Constitutional Council to examine the legality of the new law, especially those provisions which cover the rights of children and the rules governing inheritance.

The Council has one month to issue a decision, though the government can ask for that to be sped up to eight days. In the event of a green light from the Constitutional Council, the president then has ten days to sign the law.

As for the impact of the debate on the plunging popularity of President François Hollande, La Croix says he'll be anxious to turn this page as rapidly as possible. His presidency was intended to be a mission of pacification, but instead of bridging gaps between segments of French society, he has created new cleavages and given rise to a new and dangerous element on the political right.

Meanwhile, the mainstream right is delighted that the homosexual marriage debate has helped people to forget about the internal divisions revealed by the Copé-Fillon battle for leadership of the UMP.

As for the money, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Europe's industrial and service sectors are suicically depressed; the good news is that the bad news is so bad, the European Central Bank will almost certainly have to lower its key lending rate to European banks. The prospect boosted the Paris stock exchange yesterday, with share values jumping nearly four per cent in value. What bad news?