Skip to main content

French press review 29 April 2014

Alstom, the Pacific Basin and Kadhafi's son Saif's trial are among the subjects in today's French papers ..

Advertising

Who cares who buys Alstom? Part of the French energy, transport and engineering company is up for grabs, and the American General Electric is chief among the grabbers. It's become a national debate.

There are three official concerns: jobs, location and energy supply. The government claims not to care who the new owners are, provided they meet the necessary guarantees in those crucial areas. The French state can claim a certain say in the future of a company which, although privately-owned, needed government cash to beat off the baying bankers in a crisis in 2003.

And the French state has long been one of Alstom's biggest customers. Not to mention the fact that the company is a big player in the oh-so-sensitive nuclear sector. And where does all this leave François Hollande's 'responsibility pact', if French bosses go selling the dinner plates to foreigners without as much as a glance in the direction of government?

Says left-wing Libération in an angry editorial, the Alstom affair is a terrible illustration of the "contradictions, failures and powerlessness of the state in the industrial sector". It would almost be funny, says Libé, if the human, strategic and political stakes were not so high. The problem is not that the state has decided to get involved, simply that it got involved too late. The crucial decisions have already been taken. The French government, and the rest of us, will know who the new owners of Alstom are tomorrow morning, before the Paris stock exchange opens.

Le Monde's editorial raises the spectre of a shooting war in the Pacific Basin, with China and the United States the chief potential belligerents. This dark line of speculation comes in the wake of Barack Obama's week-long Asian tour, an attempt to assure American allies that Uncle Sam will be right behind them in the rush for the exits if the Chinese dragon starts breathing anything more noxious than air pollution.

The problem, says Le Monde, is the economic slowdown. When the world had the money to buy tons of cheap Chinese junk, political squabbles over a few rocks jutting out of the Pacific Ocean were relegated to insignificance. Now, with growth, margins and market-share all declining, strategic considerations are once again to the fore. And that means annoying the neighbours.

Obama has been telling the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Malaysians that they can count on Washington when the going gets tough. But, wonders Le Monde, what are such assurances now worth, in view of US powerlessness in Syria and the Crimea?

On inside pages, Le Monde reports from the opening of the trial in Tripoli of Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, son of the deposed dictator, Moamer. The trial is taking place in Tripoli, but Saif is not. He's in a prison cell in Zentan, nearly 200 kilometres away, watching, and contributing, to proceedings, by video link. The official reason for this is security, but Kadhafi's lawyers say the physical absence of their client invalidates the trial, since they can not be sure that he is not answering under pressure.

He sounded fairly free of pressure in his first answers.

The judge asked, "Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, do you have a lawyer?" and the accused replied "God is my lawyer." To the question "Do you have any request to make?" came the answer "That you should be at peace."

Kadhafi and 36 other former members of the deposed dictator's inner circle face charges including assassination, threathening national unity, incitement to rape and recruiting mercenaries in their efforts to suppress the 2011 uprising which lead to the overthrow of the Kadhafi regime. Several charges carry the death penalty.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.