French press review 17 September 2013

The front pages are a bizarre mix.

For the second day on the trot, communist L'Humanité gives pride of place to its own weekend jamboree of music, dance and serious political discussion.

Libération warns against the dangers of a political drift towards the values and principles of the extreme right.

The front pages of Le Figaro and La Croix are an object lesson in right-wing angst and Catholic cheer.

Le Figaro tells us that the French national debt will be close to 2,000 billion euros next year. First of all, they're exaggerating, it will be only 1950 billion euros . . . that's a 50 billion euro hike, which may be neither here nor there for Le Figaro but is still serious money. And, anyway, when you get to these sort of astronomically large figures, they lose any human significance. In human terms, that represents an individual bill of 30,000 euros for every French man, woman and child.

No worries, would seem to be the message from Catholic La Croix, where an exclusive opinion poll reveals that a majority of the French believe that the hard times of the financial crisis are coming to an end. At least, that's La Croix's optimistic take on statistics which still look, frankly, bleak.

One per cent of hardline optimists actually believe that the crisis is over. They obviously haven't been reading the papers recently. A further 12 per cent think that things are getting better, while 18 per cent say that the worst is behind us. That still leaves 69 per cent of French people who think we remain head, neck and cheque book in the depths of darkest economic night.

Interestingly, French women are less optimistic than men: three quarters of the girls think we're still up to our ankles in the merde, as against only 64 per cent of the blokes.

On inside pages, Le Monde reports that last Sunday, on the Olympic course in London's Hyde Park, a 24-year-old Iranian by the name of Shirin Gerami finished in 76th place in the World Triathlon Championship. Like each of the 86 other competitors from 83 countries, Shirin swam 1500 metres, covered 40 kilometres on a bike, finishing off with a 10k road race. Shirin Gerami was the official representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but only because she agreed to follow the strict dress code for sportswomen.

For each of the three disciplines, Shirin had to be completely covered, from head to toe, and this in sports where the modern tendency is towards minimalist clothing for a maximisation of speed. The organisers set up tents for her at the transition points between sports so that she could change in complete privacy. The wonder is that she finished at all, one commentator saying that, with the extra weight of damp clothes, time lost in getting to and from her changing tents, and the wind-resistance of her figure-concealing outfits, Shirin's triathlon was the energy equivalent of a ten-discipline decathlon.

Shirin Gerami got a special and warm round of applause from the London spectators, as well as being helped several times by her competitors, notably when she got stuck in her body bag at the start of the swimming stage.

Shirin was delighted to have represented her country and said she did it to encourage other Iranian women to do the best they can under the current rules.

Her countrywoman Elham Asghari set a world record in open sea swimming last June. But that record will never be recognised inside Iran because, unlike Shirin last Sunday, Elham's full-body swimsuit was not in conformity with sharia law.