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French press review 15 January 2015

Did you try buying a copy of Charlie Hebdo yesterday? Well, if you did, you must probably found that they were sold out.

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According to Le Monde, the satirical weekly sold 700,000 copies of its post-attack edition yesterday.

The newspaper reports scenes of people queuing in front of newsstands at 5 or 6 in the morning all across France.

The remaining staff of the weekly have decided to print 5 million copies - so you should be able to find a copy of the newspaper today or tomorrow.

And of course, since the paper used to sell 20,000 copies on average, it's not surprise to find that some people in the queue had never read Charlie before.

For example, Paule said to Le Monde "I never bought it, but today I'm here to make History".

Foreigners will also be able to read Charlie Hebdo, translated versions of yesterday's issues should be made available today.

Controversial humorist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was yesterday arrested for being on charges of being an apologist for terrorism.

A week after the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people, he is not the only one.

Prosecutors had opened the case against Dieudonné on Monday after he wrote “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” on Facebook– mixing the slogan “Je suis Charlie”, with a reference to gunman Amédy Coulibaly.

Now, according to today's Le Figaro, 54 people are being prosecuted by the French justice system for condoning terrorism.

Among these people, 17 of them are being prosecuted for "terrorists threats" explains the newspaper.

Le Figaro reports cases of people threatning the police or writing messages on social networks.

One man who posted 22.000 messages condoning terrorism on Twitter was sentenced to 4 years in jail.

Some of them, explains Le Figaro, are defending themselves by saying they just wanted to create an online buzz.

Turning to a different issue, abortion was legalised in France 40 years ago...

And Libération gives us some interesting numbers from the National Institute of Demographic Studies.

On average, women have their first abortion at age 27 - and at that age 15,70% of pregnancies are terminated.

For the newspaper, it's a sign that "young woman are free to stop an unwanted pregnancy".

9.5% of French woman have at least one abortion at some point in their lives and 210,000 are performed each year in France - the number has remained stable since 1975.

For the left-wing newspaper, these figures represent how much the perception of women's sexuality has evolved in 40 years.

Finally, according to La Croix, the French think President François Hollande handled last week events properly.

Yes, according to a poll, 80% of the French think Hollande did a good job last week.

Christian Delporte, a specialist in political communication says "there was no communication error and the government was able to adopt the right tone - a mixture of emotion, strength and initiative"

And even the opposition agrees with this.

As proof of that, every MP applauded Prime Minister Manuel Valls after his speech at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Still, François Hollande's approval ratings are still very low, at 20%.

But for Hollande's entourage, "the way people look at the president could change."

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