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French weekly magazines review 30 August 2015

The impact of technology start-ups like Uber, AirBnB and Blablacar; the celebration in China of allies’ victory over Japan and the stopping of a music festival in Crimea; these are some of the issues featured in this week’s magazines in France. 

Revue de presse des hebdomadaires
Revue de presse des hebdomadaires DR
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The cover story of this week's Le Point is on the capitalistic revolution that has been ushered in by technology start-ups like Uber, AirBnB and Blablacar.

The old classical model of success has changed and France should start investing more in start-ups, it says.

In the United States people are more inclined to take such risks and France should do the same, especially considering that outside the US, Paris is the top market for AirBnB and Uber, Le Point argues.

The report states that because of such companies the way of working has changed - from a world of salaried people to a world of freelancers. In a way it is giving power to the people who are masters of their own enterprise and don’t have bosses anymore.

Another article related to the same subject tries to understand the new system we are experiencing.

The author says that the Uberisation of society is against Fordism, a concept introduced by the American industrialist and carmaker Henry Ford at the beginning of the 20th century.

Fordism gave social security and stability to employees while Uber is doing the exact opposite - it has brought more instability and more volatility. Now, prices change according to demand in split seconds.

Of course, the new system gives more freedom, the magazine says.

So a new whole new debate has started about whether this new system is beneficial for society or not, a debate that is also a part of the election campaigns in the US for the 2016 presidential election.

L’Obs has an opinion piece on China titled, "Chinese Communist Party high on patriotism".

This summer has been hard for the Chinese government because of the stock market crash, a sudden slowing down of economic growth which is at its lowest in 15 years and the industrial disaster of historic proportions in the port of Tianjin this August which angered the public.

But on 3 September all this will seem paltry next to the event that the party organises for China and for the world: a huge military parade through Beijing.

It will be celebrated with splendour as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Japan in 1945.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be sitting next to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the occasion. It is a polite return gesture as the Chinese leader was the guest of honour at the victory parade in Moscow on the 9 May.

This grandiose setting has a specific function, L'Obs says: to send a message of China's power to Asia, which doesn’t doubt it, but also to the Chinese who are starting to have doubts.

L’Obs has also reported on the stopping of a popular electronic music festival known as Kazantip in Crimea, the region annexed by Russia from Ukraine last year.

The festival has been going on for years but this year the Russian authorities decided to stop it just as it was about to start on 31 July.

The article depicts the atmosphere of the festival, follows one of the organisers who normally had support from a Russian billionaire.

But it seems this year the organiser lost that support.

The festival has been forbidden because authorities want to promote events with no drugs and alcohol, the article says.

It quotes the disappointment of a 37-year-old woman from Kharkiv who says that she has been coming to the festival for the past 10 years.

This was the first time that she saw so many police at the site which makes her feel bad.

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