French weekly magazines review

There ares sympathy for a shopkeeper who shot a thief, concern at the mainstream right's attitude to the Front National and reports from Syria in this week's French magazines.

Le Figaro Magazine is still coming to terms with the indictment of a jewel shop owner in the French Riviera who gunned down a robber who was fleeing the scene. More than one and a half million people have sent him messages of support. on Facebook

Le Figaro says the spontaneous show of support for the businessman, who had frequently been robbed, carries a strong ideological message that the culture of excuses is over. The weekly’s reflections come on the heels of charges by the conservative opposition that the Socialist government has failed in the fight against crime, that Justice Minister Christiane Taubira ’s new judicial reform is aimed at emptying France’s prisons and that citizens now consider the state as incapable of protecting them.

The affair of the Nice jeweller has set off a blaze in a French society wracked by economic crisis and fear. That’s the view upheld by L’Express. It argues that citizens have stopped dreaming of prosperity adding that all they wish for right now is a little bit of tranquillity, which both the main parties have failed to deliver in 40 years of alternating rule.

L’Express also lashes out against the so-called “noxious complacency” of the two parties, which have kept issuing “gigantic false alerts” about the dangers of a Front National (FN) win in upcoming council and European elections. For the journal the distress messages are insincere, as the Socialists and the UMP are fully conscious of their inability to deliver on their promises.

Marianne shortlisted the eight “apprentice sorcerers” it claims are making a grotesque attempt to pull the carpet from under the feet of Front National leader Marine Le Pen. They include the opposition UMP’s leader Jean Francois Copé and his sworn enemy ex-prime minister François Fillon.

Le Point is disgusted that no one is feeling ashamed about the messy situation at the UMP, accusing Fillon of openly wooing the FN with an offer to cut political deals with the “less sectarian" party in the event of a face-off between the Socialists and the far right in the second round of the forthcoming elections. A string of dignitaries rushed to distance themselves from the ex-prime minister, according to Le Point but, as it noted, it’s all a fool’s game.

Le Canard Enchaîné hits a light-hearted note in its reaction, saying that it was not Fillon who spoke but his presidential ambitions. It points out that Fillon’s new position is perfectly in line with conventional thinking in the party, up to 48 per cent of the movement’s electorate sympathising with the work of the FN leader Marine Le Pen.

There are interesting new details about Le Pen's rising popularity in this week’s Le Nouvel Observateur. Her poll ratings have leaped to a record high after her party’s summer school last weekend. At the event she presented teh ouotlines of a manifesto which she hopes will take the movement to power. Le Nouvel Observateur picked out a line from her script on that occasion. Marine praises Francois Fillon for delivering the last blow to the UMP cadaver.

Marianne is saddened by the bleak truth coming out of Syria. It cites a new report published by British magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly, stating that up to 50,000 jihadists - half the rebel forces - are now fighting against the Damascus regime. Over 500 of the Islamist combatants are Europeans,200 of them French nationals recruited on Facebook, it says. Those facts, according to Marianne, contradict France’s blind obsession that the anti-Assad Syrian Liberation Army is composed essentially of secular and enlightened forces.

Le Nouvel Observateur states that the Islamic combatants have become an obsession to French anti-terrorism services. Some, according to the weekly, have managed to escape justice because they didn’t survive.

Le Point documented the suffering endured by Syrian Christians in the village of Maalula. It’s become the symbol of Christian resistance after it was caught in a battle between rebels and the Syrian army. Le Point says repeated attacks by jihadists on the town’s population has strengthened the Christians’ support for President Bashar al-Assad.