French press review 30 April 2013

France announces reduced budgets for the military, and as French workers prepare to down tools for International Labour Day tomorrow, a preview of a month of protests scheduled for May.

Le Monde gives pride of place to plans to trim the French military establishment.

Under the headline "France gets ready for tomorrow's wars, with reduced ambitions" the centrist daily says the White Paper on Defence, presented to the president yesterday, is an attempt to balance the budgetary requirements of a state on the verge of bankruptcy with the financial demands of an army ever more dependent on expensive hardware, facing an enemy ever more difficult to identify.

And it's not clear that the republic is well placed to fight either space wars or cyber battles. Even with the harshest of cuts, defence is still going to cost France 180 billion euros over the next five years. The reduced strategic emphasis will be on Africa and the Mediterranean. Space and the cybersphere will just have to wait.

The majority of today's papers celebrate International Labour Day a few hours ahead of schedule, since the majority of them will not be appearing tomorrow, 1 May.

Communist L'Humanité says protecting employment is the number one priority for a majority of French people. There wil be no fewer than 279 marches on the nation's streets tomorrow, with the message "yes to jobs, stuff the austerity".

However, as the Le Monde editorial points out, the world has changed, and employment policy is no longer a national affair. Globalisation has seen the rapid emergence of India, China and Brazil, and the old world just can't compete.

Technological change means new ways of producing and distributing products, new means of finance and management. And no economic sector is spared.

Europe's political leaders have known this for years, says Le Monde, but not one of them has had the courage to draw the obvious consequences.

Le Figaro is happy to announce that tomorrow is just the thin end of a tough month on the French protest circuit.

As well as the disgruntled trade unions tomorrow, there'll be the traditional meeting of supporters of the right-wing National Front at the statue of Joan of Arc here in Paris.

On Sunday, the far left put on their party hats and go marching against austerity. Along the way, they may meet the odd ultra-catholic, belatedly protesting the law allowing marriage for everyone. And that's just a curtain-raiser for the big protest against marriage for all, scheduled for the last Sunday in May.