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French press review 19 July 2013

The papers launch a scathing attack on Franco-Belgian Bank Dexia, whose bailout cost the French state 6.6 million euros.

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Dexia is in the eye of the storm after France’s public auditor announced on Thursday that moves to rescue the major lender to local governments had cost the French state 6.6 billion euros, adding that the bill could rise further.

Les Echos puts the direct losses suffered by the French state from the bailout at 2.72 billion euros, the greatest French bankruptcy ever recorded, according to the economic newspaper. It quotes the Cour des Comptes, the state auditing authority, as saying that the global financial crisis left the lender overextended and unable to raise funding due to risky investments that had turned sour.

Aujourd’hui en France notes that recapitalisation costs drove up public deficits in both France and Belgium, as both struggle to meet EU-mandated budgeting rules.

Libération expresses indignation at the hefty bonuses and retirement benefits that Dexia’s chiefs paid themselves as the bank went bankrupt, starting in 2008. Libé reports that the auditing authority is now urging liquidators of the lender to scrap the benefits as a precondition for the absorption of the debt by the bank deposits authority.

Le Monde takes up the anger of corporate chiefs' union Medef sparked by the government’s newly unveiled energy policy about shale gas and nuclear power. Investors, according to the paper, are denouncing what they see as the Socialists’ drive to halve energy consumption in France by 2050, a move which is likely to hamper industrial growth.

Le Monde predicts tough times for the Socialist-led government and their Green partners, as it does not expect President François Hollande to meet his campaign promise to shut down the controversial nuclear plant at Fessenheim during his current term. The process according to the paper will be bogged down by a complex judicial puzzle and the astronomical cost that it will take to shut down France’s oldest nuclear reactor.

Le Figaro leaks an unpublished British parliamentary report showing that Prime Minister David Cameron’s government authorised the export of weapons and military equipment to 25 countries, including Syria, Iran and China. The right-wing paper points out that the revelations about the arms sales worth 14 billion euros come after London abandoned plans to arm the rebels fighting the Bashar al Assad regime in Damascus.

According to the paper, the parliamentary commission's members were stupefied to hear that the equipment sold to Syria over the last two years includes sodium fluoride, used to make chemical weapons.

Le Figaro says the sales raise suspicions that the United Kingdom may have helped Damascus acquire the deadly sarin gas, which is suspected to have been used recently in the Syrian conflict. London renewed or signed 3,000 licences for the export of products considered strategic to regimes that were under a European arms embargo, according to the right-wing newspaper.

Libération denounces the "dictatorship" of Russian leader Vladmir Putin after  the five-year sentence on opposition leader Alexeï Navalny on fraud charges. Navalny, who emerged as a powerful new political force in mass anti-Putin protests, was believed likely to challenge Putin in the next presidential election in 2018. Libé sees the harsh sentence as the ultimate manifestation of abuse of power in Russia.

The sports daily L’Equipe and Aujourd’hui en France provide maximum space on their front pages for French cyclist Christophe Riblon, as he celebrates victory in stage 18 of the ongoing Tour de France cycling Grand Prix. Riblon’s triumph at L’Alpe-d’Huez on Thursday is the first stage win by a Frenchman midway through the 100th edition of cycling’s most prestigious event.

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