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French press review 20 April 2016

MEDEF threatens walkout from Union talks over workers benefits; Warnings of overbidding as social dialogue faces deadlock; endemic absenteeism in French hospitals; the magic of NationBuilder in the French electioneering; Mahmoud Abbas' son named in "Panama Papers" scandal and winless Marseille in do or die French Cup clash.

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The battle over labour Minister Mariam El Khomry's law reform bill rages on here in France. The papers are particularly inspired by an ultimatum set by business chief's Union, MEDEF.

They are threatening to walk out of the ongoing social dialogue if certain clauses in the bill being debated in parliament are not scrapped. The articles in question such as unemployment insurance and increased taxation on short term contracts are favourable to workers.

La Croix

According to the Catholic daily, overbidding could only lead to a deadlock in the process involving nothing but losses at a time when every where in the world the minimum wage is being used as an instrument to fight poverty.

L'Humanité

Job insecurity is becoming an obsession to the business chief's Union argues the Communist daily. MEDEF's proposal in the "unemployment convention" under negotiation to scale down the benefits of casual intertainment industry workers,  is "an excercise in blackmail".

For the paper, that is absolutely unacceptable to the fragile work force. L'Humanité also reports that more than 20 general assembly meetings grouping more than a thousand so-called "intermittents" were held across France on Monday as they brace for war with MEDEF to press their demands with more protests planned alongside the anti-labour law demos on the 25th and 28th of April.

Le Figaro

The Conservative publication leads with the findings of a new study on the disturbingly rate of absenteeism in French hospitals. The Hospi Diag, for the national agency for the support of performance in hospitals, carried out in 22 of France's top hospitals, show that staff members stay away from work for an average of 30 days per year, (some taking up to 40 days of sick leave annually).

The Hôpital Nord de Marseille is the worst of the class with close to 1100 workers missing everyday from the facility's 12000-strong workforce, according to the study.

Libération

Discover the miracle programme on which a growing number of politicians are relying  to conjure their electoral fortunes. It's called NationBuilder a "political marketing tool", a one-in-all, used to "optimize their campaigns and mobilize potential voters" by American Presidential candidates including Donald Trump and here in France by presidential aspirants such as Far-Lefist maverick Jean Luc Melenchon, Conservatives like Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Bruno Le Maire and even the front runner Alain Juppé ahead of the 2017 race to the Elysée Palace.

Libé says the former French Prime Minister and Mayor of Bordeaux has hired a pair of experienced hands to run his platform: the French-American Eve Zuckerman who is a certified expert on digital strategy with NationBuilder. Zuckerman aged just 25, won acclaim for driving the campaigns of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel in 2011 and Barack Obama's re-election bid in 2012.

NationBuilder's CEO Jim Gillian says the heart of the machine is the famous data base, regrouping at times the FaceBook and Twitter profiles of party members, sympathizers, or simple prospects.

According to Libé, they now boast of some 7000 clients in 98 countries and are changing the manner in which electoral campaigns are perceived, with a new picture of the political market wherein voters are consumers and and the candidate, the product.

Le Monde

More revelations on the "Panama Papers". One of the sons of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas owned shares worth one million dollars in an offshore company based in the Virgin Islands.

The paper reports that Tarek Abbas registered the Arab Palestinian Investment Company with Mossack Fonseca law firm in 1994, when Yasser Arafat was head of the Palestinian Authority and a year after his father Mahmoud Abbas led the Palestinian delegation to the Oslo accords.

L'Equipe

"No More excuses" headlines the sports daily, as it contemplates the fortunes of French football giant Olympique Marseille after the firing of coach Michel following his 10-match winless run.

The Spaniard was the scapegoat for the debacle that forced owner Margarita Louis-Dreyfus to put the club on sale. But, now that he's gone, the sports daily says the outfit will have him to blame if they lose tonight's psychological clash with Sochaux for a season-saving place in the final of the French Cup this Wednesday.

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