Skip to main content

French weekly magazine review 17 July 2016

The weeklies offer food for thought on everything from French New Wave cinema to "post-truth politics". Find out more about the relationship between Trauffaut and Godard, and feel the tension rising between the right-wing candidates gearing up for the Presidential primaries, in this weekend's press review.

DR
Advertising

Le Figaro takes a look at the political leaders who are sizing each other up ahead of the right-wing presidential primaries in November.

The official campaign will begin on 21 September but the tension between Nicolas Sarkozy, Alain Juppé, Francois Fillon and Bruno Le Maire is palpable. And it’s rising, according to Le Figaro.

This primary will be a competition between strong personalities and incontestable talents. There’s a lot at stake.

All the right-wing candidates are convinced that whoever wins this primary will go on to be President of the Republic. As he tours the country, Nicolas Sarkozy is at pains to remind the French people that his connection with them has not been broken. In Le Figaro’s assessment, the buzz around the candidates appears to be strongest with Sarkozy, even though he is still behind Alain Juppé in the popularity polls.

Political "swindlers"

From right-wing presidential candidates to political swindlers – Marianne devotes its cover story to the European politicians who it says have cheated us.

There’s José Manuel Barroso, the ex-president of the European Commission who is now advising the American bank, Goldman Sachs, on how to deal with Brexit. In accepting to work for Goldman Sachs, Marianne says, Barroso has morally betrayed the oath he made in front of the European Court of Justice in 2004.

And then there’s the British Brexiteers: Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove who have brought about a new era in British politics: the “post-truth politics.”

The left-wing magazine explains that the morning after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Johnson and Farage were forced to admit that the £350 million pounds, which they said Britain spent every week on Europe and which they promised would be redistributed to the NHS, was actually £120 million pounds and that this money wouldn’t in fact be reinvested in the NHS. A few hours later, another Brexiteer, Daniel Hannan, admitted that Brexit wouldn’t ease mass immigration.

This isn’t the first time that politicians haven’t respected their promises, Marianne says.
What's new is the politicians’ admission on the very morning of their victory that their promises were completely empty, as if words no longer had any meaning.

French New Wave

The left-wing L’Obs contains a fine balance between political and cultural stories among its pages this weekend.

The stories range from political resistance in the form of demonstrations against the French labour law reforms to philosophy in the form of a Q+A piece on the 18th century German thinker, Imannuel Kant. There’s even a quiz you can take to discover if you are “still on the left” or if you have “already moved to the right”.

One of this weekend’s essays in L’Obs examines the relationship between two masters of French New Wave cinema, Trauffaut and Godard. It’s a relationship that couldn’t last, according to l’Obs. They were too close and too different; they were like a pair of feuding brothers, such as Balzac and Stendhal, or Debussy and Ravel, or Sartre and Aron. Two different aesthetic schools, two different audiences.

What cuts the world in two? L’Obs wonders philosophically. Isn’t the oblique line that draws together opposites, such as cat/dog; tea/coffee; MAC/PC, the same sign that separates them? According to l’Obs, we all have to make a decision about which side of the bar we are going to place ourselves on.

But l’Obs reassures its readers that it’s not simply a question of finding fault with Godard and truth with Trauffaut. Rather it’s to recognise what Goddard had the courage to do after Trauffaut’s death, like Schubert following the death of Beethoven.


France: "the salt of the earth"

And finally, right-wing Le Point is a running weekly feature on the principal right-wing Presidential candidates who are preparing to do battle with each other in the primaries.
This week, it’s the turn of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

We learn that she is a fan of the work by the French philosopher, Christian mystic and political activist, Simone Weil, such as Gravity and Grace and The Need for Roots.
We also learn that she believes France is the "salt of the earth”.
 

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.