French press review 23 May 2014

It's difficult to avoid the European elections in today's French press.

We'll start with centrist Le Monde. The photo on their main page is not a French politician but the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Nigel Farage, and member of the European parliament. On the inside pages the daily profiles the leader who wants the UK to withdraw from Europe.

The headline of the article is "I want my UK back". The paper draws comparisons with the Front National (FN), France's far-right Eurosceptic party. But, Le Monde notes, Farage has never formally aligned his party with the FN because, he says, of its anti-Semitic and racist origins. The daily concludes that what Farage really wants is not to be in a position of power but to be able to influence the discourse in UK politics. He wants to be kingmaker.

Turning back to France, Le Monde publishes a poll that demonstrates that three-quarters of French people don't know very much about European institutions and that the the media is no help in the matter. The main TV news at 8.00pm dedicates less than half as much coverage to the European elections as it does to the presidential election.

Le Monde also picks up on the article that former president Nicolas Sarkozy has published in one of the French weeklies.

It is the first article he has published since he was defeated in the 2012 elections. His article is unashamedly pro-European and he warns of the dangers associated with the recent "outburst of populism" and that "the destruction of Europe puts the peace of the continent in peril".

He also takes the opportunity to defend his European model: that is to say that some countries are more influential than others and that the idea that all nations are equal is untenable, the idea of a two-speed Europe. But many members of his party have  warned against him getting involved in the debate surrounding the elections. They argue that if the FN gets more of the votes it would look as if FN leader Marine Le Pen is stronger than Sarko.

And Le Monde's analysis points to the fact that the FN currently looks strong in the opinion polls. Barring a big surprise, the FN will come up trumps.

Catholique daily La Croix reports on the visit of the Pope to the holy land this weekend. He will spend three days in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Whilst the Vatican insists that the visit is strictly of a religious nature, the daily notes that the pontiff is striking a balance with the political situation in the region.

Interestingly, though, Pope Francis wil be travelling with a rabbi and a Muslim scholar. Whilst both are personal friends of the Pope from his home country Argentina, it is still an unprecedented move for a pontifical visit to be accompanied by representatives of other religious groups. The trip comes against the backdrop of a wave of vandalism against Christian religious buildings in Israel but the Catholic church is not expecting any sort of agreement on that question to be finalised in the next few days.