French press review 26 June 2013

Right wing Le Figaro says the socialist government is divided over the wisdom of Justice Minister Christiane Taubira's plans to reform the French penal system.

It's hard to understand why the right wing daily would choose that as a front page story this morning, since the project won't get to parliament before September, but any fiddling with law and order issues gets Figaro hot under its starched collar, especially when they can claim that there's a policy rift between the Justice and Interior ministries.

There are problems. French prison overpopulation is at an all-time high. The Justice Minister wants to stop sending those condemned to less than two years behind bars, behind bars. If you see what I mean. She is against minimum sentences for repeat offenders and for the most dangerous delinquents.

She refuses to change legislation on under-age offenders, which dates back to 1945. According to Le Figaro, Taubira's refusal to budge is worrying not only police and prison authorities, but also Manuel Valls, the Interior Minister.

Worse, says Figaro, is the fact that the socialists are playing into the hands of the extreme right National Front, which once again showed its electoral muscle by winning 46 percent of the vote in the second round of a by-election for a vacant socialist seat.

Left-leaning Libération looks back to the tragic death, earlier this month, of anti-fascist activist Clément Méric. He was killed when he was allegedly struck in the face by a member of an extreme right group.

A new piece of security video, recorded by the public transport organisation, RATP, now suggests that Méric may have provoked his aggressor in the first instance, since the short video shows him striking another individual in the back. The police have completely rejected this interpretation and maintain charges of willful violence leading to accidental death against the presumed aggressor.

The Libé editorial says that even if these latest allegations turn out to be true, this will not validate any attempt to put the extreme right and their opponents on the far left in the same sack. Fascists are the menace, not the people who stand up against them.