French press review 12 November 2015

Upcoming French regional elections causing political clashes and mergers, violence in refugee camps in Calais and unease within the French journalistic community are among the topics making the headlines in France today.

DR

The upcoming regional elections in France are on the front pages of both Le Monde and Libération today.

Le Monde headlines with Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s office’s plan to counter the far-right Front National (FN). Valls apparently wants to have mainstream right and left parties form a united front against the FN in the second tounds of voting in the northern regions of the country but has yet to have a response from their leaders.

Libération takes another approach and takes a deeper look into, this time, southern regions, where the left is favoured. One of the contestants has decided to lead an unprecedented list merging the Greens and the hard left in order to beat the Socialists there.

The other topic making headlines is the refugee crisis, as over 50 EU and African leaders meet in Malta to talk about the issue.

Both Le Monde and Le Figaro have articles on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Le Monde says she is being attacked within her own party, whereas Le Figaro hints that if Germany is closing its borders due to an overwhelming number of migrants coming through, the rest of Europe could potentially suffer from a "domino effect".

Le Figaro also offers another angle on the issue, one in which IMF’s Christine Lagarde explains why European countries should welcome more migrants as it could potentially help the economy of an ageing Europe. 

Libération, on the other hand, has decided to give France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve a full front page and goes into several hot topics at the heart of French politics, such as the rise of terrorism and the migrant crisis in the northern French city of Calais. 

The migrant crisis in Calais is also mentioned on several front pages, with Le Figaro running as headline “The risk of war". Le Monde and L’Humanité are less alarmist but still worried, reporting on the latest violence and remaining tensions in the camps,  especially following violent riots in one of the camps nicknamed “the Jungle."

La Croix has its editorial on today’s meeting of French deputies, as they are to examine a proposition on taxes, a heated debate within French politics. 

But it also talks about the latest decision from the European Union to have producers clearly label products coming from settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and sold in the EU.

Since the EU, in line with international law, does not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the territorie, the notice also says this is not a new law, rather it reflects the commission's understanding of relevant EU legislation.

This decision has angered Israel, with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahou saying that the EU should be ashamed of itself, adding it was a highly hypocritical decision that "singled out Israel and not the 200 other conflicts around the world”.

L’Humanité also gives the story, reporting that the Palestine Liberation Organisation said that if this was a welcomed decision, it “wasn’t enough, since all products coming out of a crime should altogether be banned.”

The Communist Party newspaper is the only one that comments at length on Wednesday’s commemorations of Armistice Day and France’s President François Hollande’s tribute to the fallen soldiers of World War I and to Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor who passed away on the eve of the event.

Le Monde covers the event with a cartoon from Plantu.

The last story on everyone's lips: Le Figaro Magazine's controversial report on the marathon of New York run by one of the journalists, Guillaume Tabard. the Satirical paper Le Canard Enchainé points out that Tabard's story was paid for by shoe-manufacturer Asics, which gets several passing mentions in the piece.

Needless to say that it not only causing unease for Le Figaro, but it also raises questions of integrity amongst our peers.